Hi all!  I just got back from vacation and see all this hoopla about Magma!

First of all, I am rather taken aback by some of the comments I am reading
here.  If someone has a problem with Magma, I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT.  I
regularly scan the list for posts about Magma and always reply to every email
anyone sends me almost always within 24 hours.  I want to *engage* anyone who
is interested in it to ensure they have a positive experience with it.

Let me state, as clearly as I can, what I believe about the stability of
1.0gamma7 when run with a 3.7VM on a 3.7 image.

    *** NO KNOWN ISSUES ***

Of course, I'm not saying there are no issues, but in *my* use of it, it works
very well.  If someone finds otherwise, then please *speak up* by posting on
this list or emailing me and I'll fix it or get you going promptly.  I work
with Magma every day and it works great for me for what I use it for.

Ok, I just saw Ramiro's stack trace.  Folks, the deal with 1.0gamma7 in 3.7 is
the same old becomeForward: bug that I reported in Squeak years ago.  It's been
a long, hard-fought effort to get it acknowledged by the community, and we're
almost there!  As of now, we are only waiting for the new VM to be compiled. 
If you want to use 1.0gamma7 then email me and I'll mail you a custom VM you
can use until the new one is available.

Avi wrote:
> Certainly, my experience with Magma was similar to yours: I 
> was excited by the idea of a pure-Squeak OODB, but ran into errors I 
> didn't understand right off the bat,

Avi, you only worked with Magma waay early on, didn't you?  There were a couple
of "user-errors" you ran into that were not well-explained by Magma's error
handling at that time, and were since been improved quite some time ago.  I
think your comments above may be a bit dated.

> ...rather than diving into the large and frankly daunting Magma codebase.

I guess I have trouble understanding what the issue is with the "size" of the
codebase.  If you have an issue with the complexity, that's fine, although any
OODB, including GOODS, is going to need to perform the behaviors that Magma
does *somewhere*.  Specifically, the behavior of:

  Magma client requires the behavior of:
    a client/server framework, which requires the behavior of:
      object-serialization, which requires the behavior of:
        traversing-object graphs

None of these behaviors are available in base Squeak the way Magma needs them,
so I developed independent modules to handle each responsibility.  I feel it is
well-layered and well-factored, if you or anyone thinks otherwise then tell me
why and I'll make efforts to improve it.  I break the packages up by how they
can be used independently of Magma.  **THIS IS A GOOD THING**  Why do you keep
bringing up the "size" of the codebase as a problem?

I can think of no reason anyone should need to get into the code for Magma
anyway.  If you find a problem and you don't want to try to debug it yourself,
let me know and I'll help you the best I can.

===

Let me say, no matter what anyone else thinks about it, *I* will continue to
use Magma for *my* projects.  I know how reliable it is; and I'm starting to
build some serious programs on it that I will be releasing later this year.

Darn it, I'm sorry if I sound defensive here..  Obviously, I've put a lot of
work into Magma (years) so it troubles me when it is misunderstood or misused. 
I want to do whatever I can to help anyone who wants to use it.  Anyone who
gives it a chance and give me a chance, I think that person will be rewarded.

 - Chris