[squeak-dev] Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?

Phil B pbpublist at gmail.com
Tue Feb 27 21:36:16 UTC 2018


On Feb 21, 2018 8:36 PM, "tim Rowledge" <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:


What do you use Squeak for?


I generally use Cuis as opposed to Squeak for the bulk of my day-to-day
Smalltalk needs.  I do still use Squeak on a semi-regular basis to
cross-check issues (i.e. is a problem I'm having with the image or VM etc)
and to look at older (3.7 and earlier) images for ideas.

If you don't use Squeak, why not?


Mainly too much accretion of cruft and the resulting instability when my
code attempted to sit on top of said cruft.

If you used Squeak in the past and don't now, what pulled you away?


Cuis.  It was the best match for my needs that I found after spending a few
years bouncing between Squeak/Pharo/Cuis.  I view this as unfortunate: a
minimal base image very much like Cuis (only moreso) should be a shared
foundation that all dialects (Squeak, Pharo etc.) could be based on.  The
Smalltalk community is small enough and fragmenting it further isn't good
long term.


What does Squeak lack that you think might make you use it for 'regular'
development?


Tactically it would need to be much more minimal and modular, have API
stability, documentation, direction and stop reinventing every wheel just
because it's not written in Smalltalk (i.e. pick your battles).
Strategically, while I very much appreciate everyone's efforts on Squeak I
honestly don't see a long-term vision and think that's a problem.

What things are too hard or annoying to do?


When I was a beginner: getting started (I can't tell you how many times I
threw up my hands and said 'not worth it' given all the missing/broken
functionality, outdated documentation, broken packages etc.  I started to
see some daylight as I started playing with Cuis followed by a couple of
big wins that sold me on sticking with it).  At an intermediate level
customizing core behavior (I'm looking at you, Morphic).  And now that I've
got a moderately large codebase I can't imagine how much effort it would be
to keep it running on Squeak.

What would you like to be able to use Squeak for?


Everything I'm using Cuis for. (This is not at all a knock on Cuis as I
love what it offers me.  Rather, just acknowledging the reality that Juan
or our small group of users often have to duplicate effort on things I
think we (or at least I) often really wish we didn't have to.)

Thanks,
Phil
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