Bill,

You're missing my point completely. What I am saying is that Croquet is an
intrinsically 3D environment so "extracting the 3D engine" is something that
simply doesn't apply to it. It's like saying "let's extract the pixel
processor from BitBlt" ;-) the pixel processor *is* BitBlt, and similarly
the 3D engine *is* Croquet.

About the only thing it could be "extracted" from is the collaborative
environment (aka: TeaTime) but the entire system, including the 3D engine is
built on top of that, with precisely the assumptions that it has such a
collaborative, time-driven object model underneith. It just wouldn't work if
you tried to ignore these basic assumptions - that would be like trying to
run Squeak itself on top of a VM which can't send late-bound messages.

> If it turns out that Croquet can, with minimal overhead,
> work just like Squeak with a Wonderland or two visible, then
> I would agree that there is no point.  If however, one pays
> the full price regardless of whether the user "takes the plunge",
> then I too would be interested in seeing Squeak have
> an improved interface to 3D graphics courtesy of the work you
> have done on Croquet.

What "full price" are we talking about? Having a consumer-level graphics
card that's available with each and every computer being shipped today?
Or -oh my god- putting said graphics card actually to work?! ;-)

> Besides, if one cannot mine Croquet for the benefit
> of Squeak, then is not one or the other project a fork?

Well, is Monticello a fork because it assumes that it has PackageInfo? Is
Wonderland a fork because you can't "extract" WonderlandActor and expect it
to work without the surrounding environment?

Sure, you can "mine" Croquet for whatever you'd like - just don't expect a
few randomly taken classes to work smoothly together.

> BTW, I wouldn't care if it were not for the slickness
> of Croquet's approach to 3D graphics.  It would seem a
> shame to make that an all or nothing proposition.

Seriously, you lost me completely. I *really* don't know what "all or
nothing" proposition you are talking about. You know, when you load a
package from SM you are in the same "all or nothing" situation. You get the
entire package ... or not. I *really* don't understand what you're talking
about.

Perhaps it would be worthwhile to explain what precisely you mean by
"extracting the 3D engine". It seems to me that you have some vague feeling
that there must be a completely separable part which makes the 3D stuff
run - regardless of the underlying (time-based) object model, regardless of
the environmental factors. If that were the case, then I would agree that
it's a fork - because it describes a completely self-contained system,
basically a VM in itself.

Cheers,
  - Andreas