[squeak-dev] worst crash yet trying to load stuff from Packages Universe in 3.10.2....

Keith Hodges keith_hodges at yahoo.co.uk
Mon Dec 15 17:41:18 UTC 2008


Casimiro de Almeida Barreto wrote:
> Keith Hodges escreveu:
>> Ralph Johnson wrote:
>>   
>>> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 5:17 AM, Keith Hodges <keith_hodges at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>   
>>>     
>>>> With Sake/Packages, everyone is a czar of packages :-)
>>>>     
>>>>       
>>> Saying "everyone is a czar" is like saying "nobody is a czar".
>>>
>>>   
>>>     
>> No it isnt.
>>
>> If there are packages and "nobody" is has the power to edit the
>> definitions and the versions that are loaded then it is almost
>> guaranteed not to work, since no one can fix the problems.
>>
>> "everyone is a czar" means that it can be a genuinely collaborative
>> processes, and everyone who cares is a potential tester and fixer. They
>> are entirely different.
>>
>> I remember when some thought wiki's would never catch on.
>>
>> Keith
>>     
> Here I tend to agree with Ralph. Everyone can cooperate, but
> cooperation must be coordinated in order to avoid confusion.
At present "one unconfused person" who knows how to get something
working is powerless to do so using Universes. Even if you wrote a
package, and someone else posted it in the Universe you are powerless to
update that entry without ownership of the entry. Having a Czar for
universes would be a step forward, at least it would stand a chance, at
the moment it is practically locked.

Sake/Packages is open to all to edit the definitions. When we have more
than two contributors to Sake/Packages then we can worry about
confusion. I dont think there will be much.

I suggested using the packages at lists.squeakfoundation.org list for
discussions about Universes and maintaining Sake/Packages etc. I don't
think we have had more than 3 posts on the subject there.
> One model I enjoy (despite its many vices) is the one adopted by
> fedora.org. A guy must enroll to be maintainer of a package and then,
> if approved, he is in charge of receiving error notifications and
> possible cooperations
So now you have a bottleneck, not just one bottleneck, but Nx
bottlenecks. Any attempt to get a combination of 10 packages working can
in worst case scenario be halted or hindered by 10 people.

The maintainers of a package do not usually test their packages in all
the possible combinations in which it is deployed. The users as a
community do.

Sake/Packages enables users to get things working, they can subclass the
published definitions and write their own. This then serves as feedback
as to what is needed to get something working in a particular context.

To be honest loading stuff is now, at last, really easy, what we need
help on now in Sake/Packages now is  getting "unloading" stuff working.
Many package maintainers don't write #unload methods on their classes.

I regret I myself have never had any success with any of the linux
packaging solutions.

regards

Keith





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