On 20.04.2009, at 11:59, K. K. Subramaniam wrote:

> On Monday 20 April 2009 12:57:16 am Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>> My point is that Squeak developers all use their own images anyway.
>> Most of them do only care about the VM to the point that they expect
>> it to work. More importantly, they lack the skill to make the VM  
>> work.
>> So the VM is the part of Squeak that is most needed to be pre- 
>> compiled
>> and packaged. It's also the hardest part because of various
>> dependencies on architecture, libraries etc.
> What you say is true for developers but not sufficient for  
> consumers. I would
> expect Squeak developers to be a small part of the universe of Squeak
> consumers (think of children and teachers).

That's why Etoys is being packaged. For "consumers". With example  
projects, tutorials, online-help. That is already in the works, in  
particular as part of Sugar, which is an entry ticket for us. People  
want it in. But of course it does not depend on Sugar so works stand- 
alone, too. It *does* depend on a working and up-to-date Squeak-VM  
package.

> A image is what is needed,
> however small or however old. Eliot's suggestion to have a small  
> bootstrap
> image is a good one. The image can help a Smalltalker navigate host  
> file
> system and bring up a bigger image.


This is a nice idea but also requires major additional work. The VM  
can be packaged right now, as is.

- Bert -