Do you think that squeak is long overdue for a
Refactoring only pass.

Hi Stef, Cees and Others interested in this.

Some great feedback.

Summary, 

Refactoring would be good.

Doing it in 3.9 would not get it the proper energy.

There is a conflict about whether to refactor with
traits.

Withdrawing from supporting Etoys needs to be thought
about.

----
My reaction:

Version numbers are cheap. 3.9, 3.10, 3.11, 3.12, can
be had for a dime a dozen. Its patience that's dear.
All things can be done incrementally.

Seeing a traits refactoring would be interesting as an
experiment and risky to the development enviornment. I
would like to have a good refactored smalltalk version
to launch a traits refactoring from. The former won't
slow down the latter it would probably make it easier
and cleaner. At the end point of the traits refactor
increment we will have more info about our pleasure
with using traits. Which is why it is a good
experiment. A decision to keep it or revert back could
be better made at that time. We will not save anything
by not making the experiment.

Then we pick a version to make bug fixes to. 

And then we go back to expanding again.

The crews to do the first refactoring and the second
traits refactoring should be different. And I don't
think the feature lovers of 3.9 should head the effort
to just reorganize things. We have to find someone
with the enthusiasm for that task.

Ditto for the traits refactoring though I can hear the
energy for that in the list already.


What will happen to Etoys?

I heard a recent speech of Alans which made his
strategy clear. You don't need to convince the adults.
If you sell your idea to children and just wait you
will eventually have enough adults on your side.  And
you sell to children by making things a 'toy' or a
'game'. The concept (not the implementaion) of etoys
is important to the future of squeak because adults
are important to the future of squeak and the future
adults are children now.

The MIT scratch project will release something this
spring. 

And it seems to me that more thought must be given to
the needs, desires, and motivation of the squeakland
community. As I listen to what I hear on squeakdev I
get the sense that they are "strangers" to us now. Why
is this? How did it come about? Even if we are to go
our separate ways we need to know why.

Patience and curiosity will bring us information.
Information will beget knowledge. And knowledge will
guide us. 


A suivre

Yours in service -- Jerome Peace 

 


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