I'm with you on the filtering.  But a lot of that could be solved at a
tool-level.

I think a Package is a essential unit of organization; semantically
and practically.  I agree it would be nice for inter-package
operations, as well as refactoring operations, to be able to be better
integrated.

I also agree that file-based SCM does introduce challenges and a lot
of redundancy.

But MC1 is impressive by its staying power and relative simplicity.

 - Chris


On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 5:35 PM, Nicolas Cellier
<nicolas.cellier.aka.nice at gmail.com> wrote:
> File based SCM are a nightmare. Did you ever tried to re-organize
> source files into a different directory structure, or even worse
> reorganize classes/functions in files ?
> Fortunately Parc nailed files from Smalltalk for us a while ago, didn't they?
>
> Files, yes, but the idea of directory/folders is sticky.
> One avatar is the package, at least as it is defined now in
> Squeak/Pharo/VW: an arbitrary boundary for organizing class and
> methods with no semantic. Smell a lot like file/directories, doesn't
> it?
>
> The bad news is that our tools for handling those blobs are as bad as
> the others from this POV.
> If you move a class/method to a different package, you ain't gonna
> track it/diff it/merge it that easily with MC1...
> And this is a concrete problem when you wanna merge some Squeak/Pharo
> changes for example.
> VW Store suffers from same Achille heel AFAIK.
> Not only is it unpracticle, it was (is?) bugged (especially if you
> have silly ideas like playing with overrides)...
> Just browse the numbers of ARs related to interpackage motions if you
> have access to such database .
>
> At the end I find myself still using rough filed out change sets...
> Just the leafs of the arbitrary organizational tree, but that's enough
> they carry all the semantic.
> A pity (but thanks they are still there).
> Barely enough are the filtering tools (especially in Squeak/Pharo -
> Even MC UI seriously lack filtering facilities, a must-have for cherry
> picking).
> Should I have a look to MC2?
>
> Nicolas
>
>