> Did I capture the intent with these five points?

Yup. Great summary, thanks!

Cheers,
   - Andreas

On 7/14/2010 8:48 AM, Hannes Hirzel wrote:
> Dear all
>
> I am glad that the topic of Configurations is in focus again this month.
>
> In May 2010 this year we had done a prototype based on Metacello
> configurations. Andreas had provided two GUIs (a hierarchical one and
> a "flat" one)  which collected the meta data from ConfigurationOfXYZ
> classes (e.g  ConfigurationOfSQLite3
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2010-May/150816.html
> )
>
> See more in the thread started by
> Dale Henrichs - Community Supported Packages
> (takeing on the proposal by Andreas Raab)
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2010-May/150673.html
>
> What is different now as of July 2010 that Andreas proposes the GUI
> not to base the lists of things to load directly on MetaCello
> configurations but to include a level of indirection.
>
> Instead of basing the GUI on MetaCello configuration classes it should
> be based on "catalogue entries" (or generally meta information). An
> entry may still include the info that a MetaCello configuration class
> has to be loaded but other means of getting things into the image
> would be allowed as well.
>
> This is of course related to SqueakMap and Universes as other people
> have pointed out in this thread.
>
> I think some of the differences are
>
> 1) we are talking about a subset of "Community Supported Packages"
> which have to be tested with the image (if possible automatically).
> Realistically speaking at this moment probably about 30 packages.
> (Universes was much more, SqueakMap is many hundreds).
> Examples are WebClient, SQLite, Magma, XML parser, Regex, JSON, Email
> client, some Games, Seaside, OmniBrowser,...   and more)
>
> 2) the catalog info for loading things should reside _in_ the image
> (contrariwise to SqueakMap and Universes).
>
> 3) The emphasis is on providing a nice GUI so that people can load
> things easily into a Squeak 4.2 image.
>
> 4) The system should encourage and facilitate "Community
> participation". Goran's time is limited and Lex has moved on to
> another environment. Dependency on key people to have time should be
> minimized.
>
> 5) The Configurations systems actually is something like a "plugin
> system". It allows to grow the developer base for Squeak without
> running into problems of needing to negotiate things on a very
> detailed level.
>
> Did I capture the intent with these five points?
>
> To summarize: I think the new aspect of a level of indirection in
> between the GUI and the code which actually loads additional code is
> useful.
>
> Regards
>
> Hannes
>
>
> On 7/14/10, David T. Lewis<lewis at mail.msen.com>  wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 06:41:13PM -0700, Andreas Raab wrote:
>>> On 7/13/2010 6:09 PM, Colin Putney wrote:
>>>> Well, in that case, we're effectively talking about SqueakMap, right?
>>>> Maybe implemented differently, but basically a catalog of things you can
>>>> install, with some metadata about how to actually perform the install,
>>>> using a method appropriate to the package.
>>>
>>> Well, I don't *think* of it as SqueakMap but the comparison is somewhat
>>> appropriate. The main reason why I don't think of it as SM is that SM
>>> wants to be "all packages ever created for Squeak" but what we need is
>>> "all packages that we've actually tested to work in this image". And of
>>> course there are some other differences (like community ownership
>>> instead of individual ownership of the catalog elements) but other than
>>> that I agree; it would probably be quite similar to SM in what it does.
>>
>> I think that perhaps a closer analogy is Lex's Universes:
>>
>>    http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/3786
>>    http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/3785
>>
>> That concept has been poorly applied (which may in itself indicate a flaw
>> in the concept, though I prefer to view it as lack of the necessary
>> benevolent dictatorship). But the ideas behind it were and still are
>> quite valid.
>>
>> Of course Goran has previously discussed merging SM and Universes, which
>> would have been great if somebody had actually done it. The basic idea is
>> that SqueakMap is "all packages ever created for Squeak" and a Universe
>> is "all packages that we've actually tested to work in this image". The
>> two together are a package management system.
>>
>> Hopefully we can now move those concepts forward. Metacello seems to
>> offer a way to provide a map to all known packages as well as a clear
>> definition of how to load the right version of each into a given image.
>> If we can add a thin layer to describe the subset of the Metacello
>> map that constitutes the universe of things that work in this image,
>> then we have more or less exactly what Goran and Lex intended, with
>> the additional benefit that it all works nicely with Monticello.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>>
>
>