>> Well, will there be a very much code removed?  I'm hard-pressed to
>> imagine we would save even 1MB of disk-space.  But yet at the cost of
>> losing a continuity-of-record about Squeak; e.g., "what happened
>> between 4.2 and 4.3".  Each release should be presented in terms of
>> its delta to the prior release.  Isn't that a bad deal or am I missing
>> something?
>
> I'm not sure about what your goal is with that delta. Condensing the sources
> is not bad, but IMHO it's late. It can be done now, but it's better before
> releasing the image (it's not specific to 4.3).

My goal is elegance, continuity, and useful information (deltas).

It's elegant, for Squeak 4.2, to consist of:  a V41 sources file +
image + changes file.  This is the traditional essence of Smalltalk
systems; sources+changes, and one which provides a "continuity" from
one released image to the next.

If we compress right before each release (instead of right after),
then wouldn't we just be deploying a "snapshot" of the state of the
system as of a particular moment in time.  There would be no
"connection" to the prior release at all in terms of what maturities
the system made.  And only because we wanted to save a couple MB of
disk space?

I guess I should ask you to clarify your question you posed to me too;
what is your goal / reasoning.  You said, "it's late" and it's "better
before releasing the image".  May I ask why?

I don't think disk-space is a good answer because someone interested
in a, as-small-as-possible is not going to use a stock Squeak release
anyway; they're going to have to do a unloading / condensing /
compression steps.

Regards,
  Chris