squeak releases, now and in the future

Keith Hodges keith_hodges at yahoo.co.uk
Mon Jan 21 17:00:41 UTC 2008


Jerome Peace wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I think we are at the anniversary of the start of the
> six month timebox for 3dot10.
>
> I am watching a lot of interesting developments.
> Damiens efforts seem to have become squeak's flagship.
> And VPRI has found resources and interest in
> developing 
> squeaklands branch of 3.8 and OPLC.
>
> As for our squeak-org branch, it seems to me the basic
> maintenence and releases of squeak are in neglect.
>   
I do not entirely agree with this conclusion since there is work taking
place in this arena.

The LevelPlayingField initiative is aiming to provide a
platform/framework whereby we can care for all of the squeak.org
releases that we use. This also provides one framework for integrating
portions of work towards future releases.

Within LevelPlayingField there are spaces for several projects that will
contribute to a future release, and so really there is no stagnation at
all, and there is plenty of room for many others to contribute.

We have:

1. DeltaStreams work by Matthew, including debugging of the SystemEditor
for atomic loading.
2. Monticello can also use SystemEditor (traits not yet supported)
3. http://installer.pbwiki.com/MinorFixesUnstable
4. http://installer.pbwiki.com/Clean

There are other tool based projects on the go as well, but they are not
yet ready to discuss publically.
> My druthers are that time boxes get honored. That
>   
I myself am not such a stickler for timeboxes, I think you could
effectively time box bug-fix releases. I do believe that improvements in
tools will make everything a lot easier. The tools that need improvement
are not part of the squeak kernel/core so it is not surprising that the
kernel is not being looked after as perhaps it might be until those
tools are complete.
> future release teams be sought. And that the current
> release be wrapped up and delivered, lessons learned
> and new development planned for.
>
> Where do we go from here?*
>   
I suggest that anyone who is interested in contributing to 3.11
contribute to and join the #squeak irc channel to join in with others
who are like minded and who are working on the future of squeak in
several different directions. (Matthew, Goran, Craig, Gulik etc etc)
> What endevors are worthwhile?
>   
We can put together ideas and use LevelPlayingField as a place to slot
together sub-projects.
> What resources are available for future efforts?
>   
I then propose that the "official" release team be comprised of people
who have been taking an active role in the process, and who use #squeak
irc communications regularly so as to encourage many more contributors
and to faclitate online teamwork. Gjallar has used this model reasonably
successfully.


best regards

Keith

p.s. For anyone itching to contribute immediately, the "Clean" script
currently leaves 12 obsolete classes in the system, so these need
tracking down ;-)



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