Tweak mainstream in Squeak

Hilaire Fernandes hilaire at ext.cri74.org
Fri Jul 7 09:03:17 UTC 2006


Andreas Raab a écrit :
> Hilaire Fernandes wrote:
> 
>>> It will be definitively a win-win situation.
>>>
>>> You may say this is already possible today with your distribution of
>>> Tweak, but like it or not, it is not mainstream so not every one buy it
>>> (I am not because of the lack of visibility).
> 
> 
> I wish it were that simple (nice marketing job btw; if this were the 
> first time I've seen this happening I'd probably buy the whole story 
> line, hook, and sinker ;-)

Please do not try to turn it the other way. I am explaining a bit of how 
things can work in free software community development, it has nothing 
to do with marketing.


> Unfortunately, all technologies go through phases and Tweak is still in 
> an "early adopters" phase. What that means is that essentially those 
> users who are scared by something not being mainstream are probably not 
> the right users to have at this point. There are at least three areas 

The problem is the lack of visibility about Tweak developer interested 
or not to get it mainstream in Squeak.org. One way to to get it visible 
is to hook it to Squeak.org, which is not the case right now.

> (graphics, object model and messaging model) that require some drastic 
> simplifications and cleanup before it could be considered easy enough 
> for mainstream use. Even though various parts have settled down by now 

Sure, this is why communication is needed between Tweak and squeak.org 
developper.

> (mostly by actually being used in various projects - Sophie, Croquet, 
> and TinLizzie have been great forcing functions in the various areas) 
> there is plenty of work left, some of which I'd say is critical before 
> considering Tweak ready for mainstream use.




> 
>>> Then later step by step Morph could be removed, if not relicensable.
>>> Just a smooth process for the benefice of everyone.
> 
> 
> If you've experienced similar processes before, they are *never* smooth. 

The sooner the smoother, the later the harder as the delta will be 
bigger between squeak.org and Tweak.

> Every last one of the larger technologies that got integrated into 
> Squeak caused major hickups, major frustrations, and for every last one 
> there have been serious attempts to avoid/retract them late in the game. 
> Sometimes these technologies had years of real use behind them. I 
> wouldn't expect it to be any different this time, and quite bluntly, I'm 
> not sure I have the energy to deal with the frustrations.

Ok, it is absolutely understandable.

> 
>> So now I have a very direct question for you Andreas, are you interested
>> by this plan?
>>
>> [ ] YES
>> [ ] NO
>>
>> No answer means, NO of course.
> 
> 
> "This plan" being to add Tweak to 3.9? Depends. For the "basic" image 
> the answer is No. That's simply because I will not knowingly add to that 
> 20MB whopper that is euphemistically called a "basic" image today. For a 

Squeak.org3.9 is what we have now, so thanks for your clear answer.
At least we now know you declined the offer to help to get Tweak in 
Squeak.org. Thanks again for this clear answer.

I think we can now close this thread then move to other options.

Oh by the way installed Eclipse is 368Mb on my Linux box...

> "full" version (which really just means that it'll be loadable via 
> SqueakMap) that's something we can talk about. Which is not quite a yes, 
> but thus far I haven't even looked at what it means to get Tweak into 
> 3.9 and I am willing to re-evaluate this option.

No Andreas, we cannot play that YES-NO game. We don't have time to waste 
resource on that sort of no answer position.

Best regards,

Hilaire



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