<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 31, 2008 1:27 PM, Andreas Raab <<a href="mailto:andreas.raab@gmx.de">andreas.raab@gmx.de</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="Ih2E3d">Laurence Rozier wrote:<br>> This is true and you make many other good observations. Since these tend<br>> to apply within just the world of Squeak and there exists a spectrum of<br>> funded entities it would seem that the prospects for improving the<br>
> situation are better there. In order for that to happen some small group<br>> of people will have to decide that it's in their collective interests to<br>> establish and maintain a Squeak kernel. The only way for the Squeak<br>
> Foundation to do this is to convince at least 3-4 of the highly visible<br>> projects - say Squeakland, Croquet, Seaside to commit to a common<br>> foundation.<br><br></div>But does *anyone* even have the slightest idea what that would entail?</blockquote>
<div>Yes, I do but the price(both human and financial capital) is probably higher than any one entity can justify and it's not likely that the pain can be distributed evenly. Given a sufficient pile of euros, I know that this can be done. It's not a computer science or software engineering project but rather an engineering systems problem. <br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>It sounds great as a theory but in practice I have never seen a setup<br>that has worked across significantly different code bases. The only<br>
working granularity in my experience is the image and in practice that<br>means that unless these projects share a common image (which I find<br>highly unlikely given that it would imply decisions about, for example,<br>the scope of Morphic supported in it) it seems almost impossible to get<br>
something like what you are describing going.</blockquote><div>It is possible to craft an evolutionary plan to get to a viable common image, one that meets the needs of different projects. Similarly wrt VM issues. Initially some may have to do a bit more work than others and backward compatibility will have to be sacrificed in more cases than people would like but the premise is that the ends justify the means. Here's a thumbnail sketch of my scenario for addressing this: <br>
-Identify a minimal image from which each project could be built<br>-Identify the major conflict areas<br>-Identify what improvements to current tools(Spoon, Tweak, VMMaker, Delta Streams, Monticello and whatever else might help) are needed to build each project from the minimal image<br>
-Determine the implementation goals and phases(2-3 max)<br>-Update the tools<br>-Use the tools<br><br>Clearly there are lots of difficulties involved with this but I don't see how any of the problems won't yield to a determined pursuit along these lines. Plus such an effort would get Spoon or some derivative of it baked in which IMO is one of the best things that could happen to Squeak. There are many important areas that need to be explored. Your Morphic example is one - maybe it would be more effective to migrate from Morphic to Tweak and manually transition older work work - or leave it behind. <br>
<br>In another life, I was faced with a gear housing for a precision spacecraft mechanism whose main shaft bore was too large. Conventional wisdom says you can't make holes smaller and while good engineers know that in some situations you can build up material on the surface of this wasn't one of those times. There was no way to get new ones made and meet the launch schedule so I came up with a way to make the bearings that went in the bore larger. We made a precision tool that held and cooled the bearing while heating a thin precision-machined ring and slipping it over the bearing. Making and ring and tool was not a trivial project but it was doable and the stakes were high. I think the stakes are very high for the three projects(perhaps adding Sophie) I mentioned. While they're all likely to survive, if they don't expand their niches significantly, survival is all it will be and having experienced the difference over the past two decades I am in favor of paying the price for expansion. While <a href="http://croquet.funkencode.com/2008/01/31/why-second-life-will-get-a-third-life/">Second Life isn't going anywhere</a>, there's still a significant window of opportunity for greatly expanding the presence of Squeak via Croquet. With well-integrated e-Toys, Seaside and other Squeak goodies Croquet will be strengthened while providing an expanded market for other Squeak projects. Other Smalltalks would have more incentive to join the party too. <br>
<br>Cheers,<br><br>Laurence<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br><br>Cheers,<br><font color="#888888"> - Andreas<br>
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