We might start out by pointing out that the board does not set  
technical policy.  Tim has been quite vociferous about that and I agree.

I would say that my statement has been misconstrued.

The question was - What do you believe is the future of Smalltalk?   
My answer was from a social/market/adoption perspective - you seem to  
have taken it from a technical roadmap perspective.

What I meant when I said other languages seem to be approaching  
Smalltalk is that they adopt more ST features all the time and the  
prejudicial barriers are dropping.  It is a fine time to win converts  
and grow the user base.  Consider how many people no longer think  
garbage collection is an intolerable drain on performance.  IOW, I  
think the future of Smalltalk is bright and that it can gain mind/ 
marketshare as a language.  So I see a future of growing user base  
and rising visibility.

On Feb 21, 2007, at 1:33 AM, Andreas Raab wrote:

> Is a discussion of these issues even worthwhile in your understanding?

Yes.  As with anything, there are things that drive me nuts about  
Squeak that could be improved.  I do understand that a better  
packaging system is needed and am open to ideas about how best to  
approach it.  PackageInfo is pretty good, but we could do better.   
I'd like to see a system that allowed package unloading as well.   
Such a thing would undo package overrides.

> Should we actively pursue changes?

Yes - with some caution.  I'm still waiting to see how Traits plays  
out.  Certainly other forks can be taken to try stuff.

> Do we need to protect the pureness of Smalltalk?

No, but we do need to protect the stability.  My platform - if you  
bothered to go read it, is about making Squeak useful for making  
commercial quality things.  http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/5922

-Todd Blanchard