[Squeakfoundation]WeakMessageSends/Events for 3.4

Stephen Pair squeakfoundation@lists.squeakfoundation.org
Mon, 9 Dec 2002 09:26:49 -0500


Rob,

> Finally, I would really like to see ConnectionHandler, 
> SocketStream and BufferStream in the base, mainly 
> ConnectionHandler.  These have been well vetted.  
> SocketStream may be eclipsed by the Network rewrite or flow, or
> both...but ConnectionHandler remains useful   (Trying to 
> build support for
> streaming mp3s certainly shows the usefulness of the flow model).

I certainly agree that ConnectionHandler is a useful class (after all, I
wouldn't have written it if I didn't), however, I still contend that
this and other features belong on SqueakMap, not in the base image.
Throwing stuff like this into the base image is how we got in trouble in
the first place.

However, I certainly agree that some packages are too big and should be
decomposed into their constituent parts.  Comanche is probably one of
these.

What I would suggest (and I'm probably going to start doing this at some
point in the future myself) is that you (and others) start publishing
your own Squeak image...and do it through an automated nightly job that
pull the updates off the stream, collects all of the packages that you
want in the image, runs any Sunits, etc.

This will be useful in a number of ways:

	a) it will serve you by having an image readily available with
exactly the things you want in it
	b) it will serve the community by making that available
	c) it will keep you disciplined in the sense that any changes
you want included in your base image will be factored out and separately
loadable
	d) it will serve the community because it will be exercising a
lot of code (and probably Sunits) on a daily basis (if anything breaks
in your build, we'll all know right away)
	e) it will serve you because if anything does break your build,
you can point to exactly what change caused it to break, alert the
people involved, and get them to change their code to accommodate your
build

The thing missing here is the automated part...but that can come with
time.

- Stephen