[squeak-dev] Installer cleverness (was Re: The Inbox: Installer-Core-tpr.434.mcz)

Chris Muller asqueaker at gmail.com
Sat Aug 31 21:43:05 UTC 2019


On Sat, Aug 31, 2019 at 12:30 PM tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:

> Outside the general discussion about HelpBrowser etc, I've just noticed
> the extremely clever parts of Installer that use the methods in the
> 'package-definitions' protocol.
>
> It's a whole parallel set of ways to load packages that wasn't mentioned
> in the pbwiki doc I was originally looking at and stealing from. It means
> of course, another tranche of stuff to try to describe ;-)
>
> Take a look at, for example,
> `Installer new merge: #osProcess`
>
> a) I'd say adding a class side #merge: to avoid the #new is worth it
>
b) way easier to tell someone to use than the whole open monticello, find
> the repository, click on... etc etc
> c) possibly easier to describe even than
> `Installer ss package: 'OSProcess'; install`
> and its relatives, since you don't need to know where packages live once
> they are specified.


Yes, I like and use it too.


> d) it does make another place that needs checking as part of release to
> make sure the package definitions are up to date etc
>

Not as part of the release process, but simply regular development of the
packages affected by new dependency requirements.  These are logical
package hierarchies (i.e., just the names and repositories, no notion of
physical "versions" anywhere), so its only when a developer enhances a
package to suddenly need an all-new dependent that they would update its
package-definition in Installer.


>
> There are also a bunch of utilities that I suspect are primarily aimed at
> supporting PersonalSqueakSource usage and that manipulate repository
> connections and locality.


Of which utilities do you speak?   There's no utilities specific to
PersonalSqueakSource that I can recall.  PersonalSqueakSource is entirely
its own external package.

I have read the swiki page (http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6366) but
> honestly it's just too succinct to  work for me. More explanation would
> certainly help!
>

I just looked at it and it seems to all be there -- perhaps as the author
it's hard for me to understand which parts need more explanation.  A lot of
things which express a somewhat complex concept require more than one
reading...

 - Chris


>
> This yet another example of how we collectively manage to hide so much
> stuff under bushels; there's loads of seriously cool things we ought to be
> using more and making more noise about.
>
> tim
> --
> tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> Useful Latin Phrases:- Fac ut gaudeam = Make my day.
>
>
>
>
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