Keith Hodges wrote:
> Andreas Raab wrote:
>> These are *excellent* thoughts. Perhaps we can get a bit more clarity
>> by summarizing the answers to the following questions (apologies if
>> this amounts to repeating things that have been said many times before):
>>
>> 1. What is the current status of 3.11 - has work on it "officially"
>> started? (yes/no/dunno are all fine answers here; I'm trying to
>> establish the basics in terms of where in the process we are)
> I have held back from saying it is "officially" started, due to pressure
> to deliver on work deadlines, which have suffered due to my extreme
> domestic pressures recently. Home life has returned to normal but still
> my paid work is a priority.

Obviously. We all have to make a living ;-) But in the meantime we 
should see if we can redistribute the work or adjust the goals to 
reflect the realities we're encountering. One of the reasons why I have 
proposed in the past to only include work that was completed previously 
is to avoid situations where some individual needs to make adjustments 
to their situation. From what you say I can only guess that there are 
parts of the 3.11 proposal that critically depend on you and that you 
won't have the time to work on for the foreseeable time. Would it make 
sense to adjust the plan towards that end?

> Nevertheless the goals were stated in the paper that Matthew presented
> to the board, and those goals have been worked upon and stuff is in the
> process of coming online.

By "the paper" I presume you mean 
http://installer.pbwiki.com/Squeak311Proposal ?

>> 2. What are the goals for 3.11? I have seen references to
>> http://installer.pbwiki.com/311 - is this "the place" for it? (again
>> yes/no/perhaps are all good answers, I just want to make sure we're
>> using the same frame of reference)
> "THE" place of reference is the 311-Proposal accessible from that page.

I have found the following three pages:
   http://installer.pbwiki.com/311
   http://installer.pbwiki.com/Squeak311
   http://installer.pbwiki.com/Squeak311Proposal
Is this it or are there other places that I'm missing?

> Matthew might update things in the next week or two.
>> 3. Where are we in the process towards these goals? Both from a
>> high-level perspective as well as the nitty-gritty details of things
>> that don't work but need to be addressed for a release.
> Many of the parts are in place. We are waiting for Bob to bring them all
> together, Bob was waiting for Rio to support ftp seamlessly.

Could you be a little more precise about which parts are in place? The 
above three pages list lots of stuff and it is very difficult to 
understand how much progress has been made where, what dependencies 
remain and where (on a percentage or similar base) we are in the process.

>> 4. How does one best track progress for 3.11? Is there an update
>> stream? Are there Monticello releases? Mantis entries? Installer
>> scripts? Alpha images? All of them?
> 1. packages at lists.squeakfoundation.com - receives emails of all of the
> monticello package commits for the components that contribute to 3.11

I've briefly looked at it and I don't understand the purpose. There seem 
to be hundreds of commit messages about Monticello, Installer, Packages, 
Sake, Tasks etc. And zero about Kernel, System, Graphics etc. Which 
doesn't look like a 3.11 commit list but rather like a KPH-dev list ;-) 
(nothing wrong with that but in terms of tracking 3.11 progress I would 
expect to see just as much traffic in other areas)

> 2. release at lists.squeakfoundation.com - discussion on the release
> (though irc is our preferred means of communication)

If you don't mind, can we have these discussions on Squeak-dev? I never 
liked the idea of "private" release lists too much - I think the release 
is the most important artifact produced here so why not discuss it out 
in the open so that people can follow along?

> 3. www.squeaksource.com/Tasks - has the actual build tasks, the roadmap
> is embodied in this code. This is where you can contribute tasks, or
> define your own personal test builds for Bob to build and test for you

How does one read this? When I look at the code there is a 
taskRELEASECANDIDATE which (from what I can tell) unloads a bunch of 
packages, unloads the tests and that's it. No fixes, no loading of any 
of the new stuff you were referring to above? Or am I misreading this?

> 4. www.squeaksource.com/Packages - loading and unloading packages, this
> is where you can contribute knowledge about what works where, AND how to
> unload things. e.g. "Castrait" (see previous mail) could be published
> here, as could SqueakByExample. Recent addition include a Kernel-Tracer
> unload, and a Null unload, a ProcessSpecific unload, AllTests (hunts
> down tests for the loaded packages), and Tasks (loads tasks for this
> version and the next)

Again, I'm not sure what exactly I'm seeing here.

> 5. A Mantis revival is on the way. There will be some queries for you to
> see progress on bug fixing very clearly.

That would be very useful.

> 6. Image build script is Installer installUrl:
> 'http://installer.pbwiki.com/311'.  When it completes (it used to) we
> will publish an image.

Thanks, I'm running it now.

>> 5. How does one best contribute to 3.11? (both, for more long-term
>> continued development as well as the ten-minute scratch-an-itch kind
>> of exercise)
> a.  Small fixes and Additional Tests - ChangeSet on Mantis, AND an
> Installer script on mantis.
> b.  Bigger Kernel contributions add your task to ReleaseSqueak310, and
> add it as a dependency, or step to one of the build steps.
> c.  Kernel contributions can be made as a monticello package which is
> merged into the kernel by a task.
> d.  Unloading stuff - changeset on mantis, and unload script in Packages
> e.  Knowledge of what loads where (basic dependencies -> Universes)
> anything more Packages
> f.  Tutorials/Readmes/Intrductions use the MC files feature to put the
> files under monticello, and add a corresponding Packages entry for
> load/unload
> g. Build scripts for Bob, particularly the OneClick image
>> I think that maybe one of our problems here is that we lost a little
>> track of what exactly the goals for 3.11 are and where we're in the
>> process relative to those and I think get some clarity on that might
>> help for future steps.
> hope that helps a bit

It sure does.

Cheers,
   - Andreas