Ragnar Hojland Espinosa wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 03, 2005 at 07:00:40PM +0200, Geza Lakner MD wrote:
> 
>>wxSqueak is a heroic effort (kudos Rob Gayvert !!!) but it has
>>inherent weaknesses in the deployment area: Squeak has by-nature a
>>HUGE footprint base system (by 'base' I do not mean barely usable ;-)
>>which could be done by shrinking the image into only 3-4 MBs), wx
>>libraries may add a factor of two to overall package size, not to
>>count the mixed licensing situation.
> 
> 
> While I initially agree with the rest of the comments, I'd like to
> point out that this "weakness" you point out is shared by other
> mainstream crap.  I have here a commercial java network oriented
> server which has a RSS of 38M just after starting, while the squeak
> image I'm developing on (ie, no shrinking at all) is 28M.
> 
> Bad for small apps, but still "competitive" for larger ones ;)

I think that depends on how one defines small apps. I often will look at 
the single purpose desktop apps on my computer and see what kind of 
resources they consume. It is often very amazing. I often see 
Thunderbird and Firefox in the 60-X00 megabytes. I think wow!!!

And then I am amazed again at all that I find in my full Squeak image 
and how little space it consumes comparatively.

Or I look at our "competition" and see how much a python/wxwidgets app 
consumes, or python/QT, or io/openGL... And then compare their 
functionality to what Squeak has. And then you have the licensing, 
versioning and install issues.

I think in many areas we are in excellent shape.

That said, I am still very much looking forward to Spoon, smaller images 
and build-up type images. They can make for a cleaner image, better 
factored, and not contain all the stuff I don't need.

But I do agree that a superficial look at either Squeak or its websites 
may give those who only give a cursory look the wrong impression. 
Currently Squeak appeals to those who are willing to dig a little deeper 
and see the beauty beneath the "different" GUI, the sometimes dated 
website(s) and the odd license. But I don't think for a moment that the 
"other" technologies have anything of value that Squeak can't have. And 
Squeak has much, much of value that they don't and some can't easily offer.

My 2+ cents.

Jimmie