What is the current assessment of 3dot10 Release scope, resources and timeline?

Jerome Peace peace_the_dreamer at yahoo.com
Sat Apr 28 19:51:31 UTC 2007


I tell Edgar that he is doing a hero's work in 
getting stuff into the image.

" You exaggerate."  he replies (with exaggerated
modesty.)

I am now convinced that I indeed have not.
He now posts that he has removed etoys and nebraska
from squeak.

So I know he is trying to do two hero's work.

Which for me raises alarms. Hero's work should be
spread around and not become the job of one
unexaggerated person.

So it is time to ask the release team for a
reassesment of the scope and time line of their
commitment.

What do you presently feel can be accomplished by the
end of your time box. Or are you contemplating
extending the timebox for 3dot10.

The time to get to first gear took, to my reckoning,
two months rather that the original predicted one.
That would imply a reduction of scope of 50%. Instead
I see a surge in ambition.

What have I missed? Where have my instincts gone
wrong?

I say this because the thought of two major excisions
worries me. Especially when they entail a doubling of
the number of unimplemented calls. And implies that
there are an even larger number of implemented but
uncalled methods in the image.

Unimplemented calls are really just a harbinger of the
health of the image. It is hard to tell if what you
have is a solid image when there are a lot of
unexplained unimplemented calls.

It also means that the packaging has been done poorly.
And that there should be some thought into what has
happened. And what has fallen thru the cracks.

At the end of 3dot9 Andreas suggested that the
releases should be based on what is available and
ready for release at the start of the release cycle.

By that measure this development seems to me to be
coming too soon. It is not ready for release but an
experiment that should influence a release further
down the line. Maybe 3.11 or 3.12.

Friends don't let friends burn themselves out without
saying something and this is my plea for
thougthfulness and planning. About time and scope and
quality.

When I am a good programmer, I am slow and methodical.
I don't always program that way. The enthusiam of the
moment can take over. Yet wards and guards have grown
to make me uncomfortable with steps that seem too
large or out of sequence. And experience has shown
that trouble lurks when I ignore those feelings of
discomfort.  That is the case now. So I wanted to
share those warnings. 

And ask the 3dot10 team to reassess and recommunicate
the scope, resources and timeline of its mission.

It would also probably be good to prompt the board to
look past the delivery point of 3dot10 and start
planning what needs to be planned after that.

Yours in curiosity and service, --Jerome Peace



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