Whither Squeak?

Gary Chambers gazzaguru at btinternet.com
Fri May 19 15:11:43 UTC 2006


I have managed to strip MVC from an image, save some basic text editor
stuff. It is possible.
Part of work on creating a basic deployment image.
It was pretty hairy though!

Would be nice if MVC (Morphic would be much harder) could be optional.

As for compatibility, most people work with what they are given and utilise
it, leading to
complex dependencies. Perhaps an automated packaging system based on MC2
where tracking of what you
use creates explicit dependencies (implicitly) while you work would be
useful.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> [mailto:squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org]On Behalf Of Ralph
> Johnson
> Sent: 19 May 2006 1:20 PM
> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> Subject: Re: Whither Squeak?
>
>
> On 5/19/06, Cees De Groot <cdegroot at gmail.com> wrote:
> > - Squeak 3.x is so far quite succesful in resisting us applying
> > software engineering efforts to it. The reasons are manifold, but two
> > major reasons are manpower and available tools, neither is going to
> > change any time soon;
>
> What does this mean?  Is this another way of saying "A lot of people
> have been trying to modularize Squeak and we haven't gotten very far."
>
> I'd like to see some of the concrete problems that rose during
> attempts at modularization.  Why is it so hard?  For example, I have
> heard that people have tried to strip Morphic out of the image, and
> they have tried to strip MVC out of the image, and both have failed.
> Why did it fail?
>
> I think this is a very interesting question, and understanding why it
> failed will teach us a lot about software in general.  If it is hard
> to modularize code in Smalltalk, which is one of the most flexible and
> visible languages in the world, imagine the problem modularizing the
> Linix kernel!
>
> Is this what you mean?
>
> -Ralph Johnson
>




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