Andreas,

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You're missing my point completely. 
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That's quite possible.  Also, Croquet is probably quite different now than it was/is in the snapshot that I have of it.



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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.
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To us outsiders (at least to this outsider), Croquet sounds like (not meant to be exhaustive)

* fault-tolerant collaboration
* retained mode 3D (Nice stuff, BTW)
* 3D user interface

It is the latter that "bothers" me the most, at least in terms of trying to use Croquet for everyday tasks.  My concerns are partly based in load time, and largely about the user's willingness or ability to interact with the user interface.

I think it is reasonable to ask whether one can get the benefit of the retained mode engine w/o forcing the 3D user interface on the user.  If you tell me that the 3D objects need the collaboration, so be it.  It's another package that I would simply load.



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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?! ;-)
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No, the 30 or so seconds it takes to load.  Before you say anything, I realize that it's a pre-pre-pre alpha version, but it still takes 30 seconds to settle down.  The Smalltalk image loads almost immediately, but the 3D user interface with all of the content (the stuff that I think of as Croquet) takes 30 seconds to load.  That's what I mean by "full price".  BTW, I did indeed have problems getting the early version to work.  Only one machine as delivered would run it w/o tweaking.  These were new P4's at the time.

Back to size and load time, perhaps the answer is to create a Croquet environment with minimal content.  Otherwise, you will probably get requests for factoring Croquet into packages, including retained mode graphics, that can be loaded into Squeak.  In fact, Ferdinand effectively made such a request.  I jumped in because the same thing had occured to me last year.




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> 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?
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But those are all packages that load into Squeak.  Ferdinand and I are talking about a better Wonderland package based on your work in/for Croquet - a package, not an isolated class (which I agree would be silly).




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Sure, you can "mine" Croquet for whatever you'd like - just don't expect a
few randomly taken classes to work smoothly together.
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That's not what I'm saying.  It seems reasonable that there would be value in having the "flat Squeak" benefit from the improvements you have made in 3D graphics.  You appear to have created something that puts a retained mode interface on top of Baloon 3D, but made it much more programmer-friendly than Alice.




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> 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.
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Ok, suppose I want to make a fundamentally 2D user interface, but have 3D objects floating around in a couple of windows.  I want to leverage your slick approach to 3D programming, but cannot throw my user in with the objects.

I *really* do not understand why you are surprised that people would think about Croquet's being packaged in a way that would allow us to use pieces of it in Squeak.

Regards,

Bill


Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: bills at anest4.anest.ufl.edu
Tel: (352) 846-1285
FAX: (352) 392-7029