[squeak-dev] not everyone _can_ be a package czar!

Keith Hodges keith_hodges at yahoo.co.uk
Mon Dec 15 19:05:44 UTC 2008


Greg A. Woods; Planix, Inc. wrote:
>
> On 15-Dec-2008, at 7:53 AM, Keith Hodges wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
> Actually literally it is.  Not everyone is capable, let alone inclined
> to do what you suggest.
Now then lets not get into an argument. I never said that they HAVE to,
I said that they CAN.

It only takes ONE person to find that a package doesnt work, and it only
takes ONE person to fix it. They don't have to be the same person, and
they don't have to be one person.

Anyone who has a problem with any package in Sake/Packages can go onto
squeak irc and may find perhaps 2 or 3 people there who will know how to
help. They will be able to fix it imedately and once it is fixed then it
will available working for everyone.

Squeak has been without an effective packages solution for so long this
has become a big deal. Personally I think it is trivially easy to get
right, and we dont need a czar at all.

Lets pick an example: Magma:

Magma has 3 installations. Magma client, Magma server, and Magma tester
Magma should work in 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 3.10 , and 3.11(to be), and Pharo
(to be), thats 18 different definitions in 6 universes.

So when I fix a bug in magma do I have to contact 6 different czars?

With Sake/Packages I can theoretically manage the package definitions
for all 18 in one single image. When a new version of Magma is released
it takes less than 1 minute to update the specific definitions for all 8
images. The non-specific 'beta' definitions may simply track "latest"
automatically.

Keith






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