<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 5:58 AM, keith <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:keith_hodges@yahoo.co.uk">keith_hodges@yahoo.co.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div style="font-size:15px">Dear All,</div><div style="font-size:15px"><br></div><div style="font-size:15px">I invite you to watch the following presentation. It was recommended by Eliot, thanks Eliot, and he is correct it is brilliant. I have watched it several times.</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Actually Danie Roux recommended it first in the Cuis thread.</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">
<div style="font-size:15px"><br></div><div style="font-size:15px">Eliot wrote:</div><div style="font-size:15px"><blockquote type="cite"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>I suggest you do need to see <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.html" target="_blank">http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.html</a> and think about its implications.</div>
</div></blockquote></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>and it seems to me you've only seen the surface. Of course we're moving from institutional to collaborative modes of interaction. This community already has. The underlying implications that you've missed are (for me, there are probably others)</div>
<div><br></div><div>- that the centre cannot hold. There is no institution enforcing one approach. You want to hold the Squeak worlds in comforting stasis so you can have every package load into everything (Josh is articulate on this point and asking the question of you). But many of the community's members have found a package-centric approach works and are using it, not to defeat you but because it works from them in the context of this community.</div>
<div><br></div><div>- that reputation and mutual respect is essential to activate the entire community. If the left-hand-edge views itself as superior then the 25% at the right-hand edge are marginalised and become disaffected. Andreas sees this clearly and points out how valuable contributions are from across the spectrum. You however hurl the most appalling insults around and scream like some spoilt kid who isn't getting his way. It is you who are acting like the institution in the anger phase.</div>
<div><br></div><div>- that every community will have its left-hand edges composed of prodigiously gifted people like Andreas (and thank the nonspecific deity of your species for that!), and that inevitably most people's contributions will be below average, but that doesn't devalue them.</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div style="font-size:15px">The current "institution" is an "obstacle" to progress, and both the "trunk" repository and the pharo team's approaches, are inherently exclusionary, generating only one product, under the guidance of the professional class of elite programmers, and celebrities we have elected etc. (you have to watch the talk). [that is why the bob process was proposed in the first place]</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>No. Trunk is an enabler, not an institution. The squeak board doesn't count as much of an institution because it lacks funds. Trunk excludes no one, everyone has read rights. It is clearly not an obstacle to progress; it is a significant part of a revived community with trunk, Pharo, Cuis and Etoys all evolving quickly and for the better. </div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div style="font-size:15px"><br></div><div style="font-size:15px">We need, and have known for while that we need the equivalent of the printing press, the thing that actually facilitates chaos and creativity, that can then be co-ordinated in its diversity and creativity, rather than being controlled. We need to level the playing field for all of us, even the little guy, the below average, "way to the left" on the contribution curve contributors.</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>We have more than enough elements for chaos in Smalltalk itself, Monticello, the internet, open mailing lists and so on and so forth. It just doesn't accord with your vision of stasis in which the ability to load everything into everything else is valued above the things themselves. You're asserting that the medium is the message. I disagree profoundly. If I am to give what I can to the community (a much faster VM) then I need to break with the past. Old mages won't load. Pre-closre code won't be file-inable, etc. Disruptive change. But it will be a good thing. Curatorship is a niche interest, valid but not one that serves the broader needs of the community at large.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The underlying direction of the execution machinery right now is towards smaller and smaller kernels into which one can load packages, and away from large monolithic images that embody a flavour or direction. Packages exist independently of a specific context. Change sets on the other hand are highly contextualised code that apply patches to a specific context and are highly likely to fail to produce their desired effect in a different context. They are extremely useful for distributing fixes but they are very bad at embodying a component.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Once we have smaller kernels we will be able to evolve the underlying execution machinery more easily and implement different object representations and more efficient garbage collectors, but the broader community won't be inconvenienced because their packages will still load. Assuredly however old images will be left behind, and the best way of bringing old code forward will be to publish it as a package and load it into a new image.</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div style="font-size:15px">What we really need as an essential starting point is actually the kernel image that we have talked about for so long. So thank you Juan Vuletich, thank you for your kernel image, I am sure it will go far.</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>And who is making the fastest progress towards that goal right now? You or Andreas and Juan? Are you helping them or hindering them?</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div style="font-size:15px">We just need a couple of tools for CUIS that will allow contributions at ANY level, and tools and infrastructure that can cope with forking if someone wants to be liberated from Juan's benevolent control of the kernel.</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>So stop hectoring and start participating.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">
<div style="font-size:15px">Essentially I am proposing a paradigm shift from "centralized" scm, like subversion or CVS (aka trunk).</div><div style="font-size:15px">and we need the equivalent of git/mercurial and bazaar, where development is decentralised and we can branch to our hearts content.</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Josh has already responded to this.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">
<div style="font-size:15px"><br></div><div style="font-size:15px">So, welcome to the brave new world, built in Cuis.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>We're free to make that choice. But even better were free to not make a false or forced choice. In the package world there is no insurmountable separation between Cuis and Trunk or Pharo or Etoys. Code is moving in packages between all of them (and in changesets when it can't be accomplished easily with packages). Open your eyes and ears man, and stop shouting at deaf ears.</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div style="font-size:15px"> </div><font color="#888888"><div style="font-size:15px">
<span style="font-size:medium"><font size="4"><span style="font-size:15px">Keith</span></font></span></div></font></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>P.S. In offence of Godwin's law I can't help but see the metaphor between Keith's model of continuous integration of everything into everything else and of Clay Shirkey's institutions vs communities and of Stalinism and the fall of Communism. There are great virtues in socialism (change sets) but when institutionalised (bob) it becomes monstrous (inefficiency of maintaining pointless backwards compatibility). ;) ;) ;)</div>
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