A wish for the File Team

Craig Latta craig at netjam.org
Sun Nov 6 09:00:02 UTC 2005


Hi Colin, everyone--

 > After we spoke at OOPSLA 2002, I evaluated Flow for use with my
 > web-based projects of the time. I quite liked it, and tried
 > to figure out how to make use of it without having to maintain forks
 > of the other packages I was relying on...

	(...or a fork of Flow, as Slate has done, for example.)

 > Ah, well. That certainly changes things. Three years ago, you were
 > pretty firmly against changing any of the names in Flow. Would you be
 > willing to release and maintain a version of Flow that doesn't
 > conflict with the existing old stuff?

	I think it's better for others to do that while I work on Spoon.

	As I've said before, I favor a very rapid transition period (when it 
eventually occurs :), given my positive experience doing that with 
Interval Smalltalk in 1997 (and later, seeing how poorly the gradual 
transition to Michael Rueger's network rewrite went). Instead of 
continually reintegrating Flow with the current bloated Squeak, I 
decided to dissolve these perennial class-name-conflict problems, by 
refactoring Squeak into a minimal object memory and a module system 
where class name and identity are distinct. (I think such a system has 
several other benefits as well.)

	Look, when people wonder how something could work differently (as in 
the recent file-positioning discussion), and I have an example solution, 
I'm going to mention it. :)  But I just don't have enough time to 
maintain a version of Flow for current Squeak while pursuing the broader 
system vision of Spoon. I think it's better for others to adapt Flow how 
they see fit, even if that just means using it as a design influence.

	Well, I can tell the only one who will be happy with this answer is me. 
:)  So, sorry for stirring things up by mentioning Flow again. As you 
were. :)  I'll be over here working on Spoon and eager to discuss what 
Squeak 4 and beyond might look like.


-C

-- 
Craig Latta
improvisational musical informaticist
www.netjam.org
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]





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