>> 2) Why aren't we (all of us including most especially myself) paying more
>> attention to Magma and making use of it as supporting infrastructure? It
>> seems blindingly obvious that this would be a good way to support shared
>> access to a database of Squeak version history.


OK, I've wondered before but never got around to doing a damn thing about it; time to at least make an effort to correct that.

Chris, I'm sure you've been asked enough times before that you have some canned response you can point us to - how *exactly* would one personally make use of Magma as a repository. I'd prefer a tediously pedantic, explain everything in terms a complete dimwit can follow (believe me, I can play one of those) with more examples than you could imagine being needed by a Zabriskan Fontema[1].

As a possibly more widely useful alternative to running a local copy, would it be reasonable to set up a network accessible repository? I'm thinking here of a read-only (or at least almost-only) system that can answer *all* the versions of a method (and other Useful Things Of Assorted Nature) via some easy to implement net api. Run it on a decently powerful machine and load up absolutely every version of every method that has ever been in a main image, and maybe even every package that has been published?

tim

[1] http://thereluctantsinger.xanga.com/663138748/does-anyone-know-/
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Strange OpCodes: DTF: Dump Tape to Floor