[Newbee] Salutations

stéphane ducasse ducasse at iam.unibe.ch
Wed Oct 5 19:59:57 UTC 2005


+1

> IMHO (not speaking of the SqF board here) I want to build a robust
> prosperous Squeak platform and community BUT not at the expense of our
> "cozy" and diverse community, our agility to adapt and change, the  
> fact
> that you as a single developer can have an effect on Squeak, and our
> faithfulness to do "the right thing". All these things matter *highly*
> to me, and probably to most Squeakers.
>
> This means I don't want to create "another Java" and trying to get  
> a lot
> of company buy-in and money poured into it. I am much more  
> interested in
> carefully crafting a better and better platform and slowly attracting
> more and more competent developers that understand the nature of both
> Squeak *and* our community and the values we share.
>
> I don't want us/Squeak to turn into something else just in order to
> attract "them" (feel free to replace "them" with "the masses" or "big
> companies"), instead we want them to understand us/Squeak and join. :)
>
> Now, regarding change and the braindead libraries (just see Date and
> friends, String or Collections in general) in Java - one thing that I
> value in Squeak is that we try to move forward. Until now we haven't
> really changed "Smalltalk-80" much, definitely not the language itself
> (Traits is the first change really) and the base libraries have  
> also not
> been radically modified.
>
> But I sense a shift in this matter - we are gradually changing our
> mindset and I think we will start seeing progress in these parts too.
> And yes, it will mean the backwards compatibility will suffer - but
> frankly, I rather see Squeak moving forward and a clear "directive"  
> with
> each release explaining what major differences you need to be aware of
> in order to migrate your code forward (this has been missing earlier).
>
> And each release in itself should be more robust, that is something we
> need to improve. Perhaps trying to produce more post release fixes and
> of course, more tests and tons of other changes in how we work
> (Stewarding for one).
>
> [SNIP]
>
>> Money and development make sense; there should be a plan to go  
>> after real
>> corporate support and money here in the US.  We need a business plan.
>>
>
> Ehm... Well... :) I personally don't see this as very high up on the
> priority list - but if people want to engage in it, then I will not
> stand in the way - unless it ends up risking the values we all  
> share of
> course. :)
>
>
>> I believe that smalltalk is extremely powerful, and terrifically  
>> fun!  The
>> foundation is the right way to go.  What better project is there?
>>
>
> I think we are moving in the right direction. Fast enough? Not  
> sure, we
> are almost all using our free time so speed will always be slow.
>
> regards, Göran
>
>




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