"Internal" updates (was: RE: [Squeakfoundation]Possible extra text

Daniel Vainsencher squeakfoundation@lists.squeakfoundation.org
Wed, 08 Jan 2003 18:25:26 +0300


As Andreas said, having any sort of separate pre- stream that is not
heavily used is useless. A pre- stream's purpose is to generate quick,
expert feedback for the stream without breaking things for a lot of
people. This worked well when a group of expert fulltime Squeakers we're
always using it. I have used a little early on, but then became busy,
and did almost no Squeaking at all. Anyway, the way we're working now,
it's broken, and merely delays our getting serious feedback from the
list.

I think we should definitely convert, for the 3.5 cycle, to one update
stream. We already have mechanisms to protect the wary - stop updating
when you get to a "Continue updating for 3.5a" question. We could
improve one these as mentioned, either using a special marker, or a
whole new SM-like update mechanism, but we certainly don't have to wait
for either of those.

I think SM based update streams would be great for the packages
themselves, and possibly maintainance of the Image release could benefit
from this mechanism, but I propose we don't tangle these until such a
mechanism is pretty well proven. IOW, I propose we 
* finish up 3.4 as we have so far, 
* for 3.5 simply convert to a single update stream, so people can decide
their own exposure, 
* and consider alternatives only for the version after 3.5.

Another technological fix we should consider is some awareness features
notifying people when the updatestream changes - mechanizing the
[Updates] mails so that people know when something new is in. Real Alpha
pilots might also set their image to pull updates every hour...

Daniel

goran.hultgren@bluefish.se wrote:
> cg@cdegroot.com (Cees de Groot) wrote:
> > Doug Way <dway@riskmetrics.com> said:
> > >(By the way, Scott just posted the various "fixes before 3.4gamma" updates to the internal update stream today.)
> > >
> > I don't know what this internal update stream thingy is or who's output port
> > you have to kiss in order to get access to it, but I think (exactly for these
> > reasons) that it should go.
> 
> :-) I agree Cees but a simple explanation might be in order here - it is
> a remnant that we decided to keep until 3.4 is out the door just because
> we (or at least I) didn't want to start banging on something and thus
> disrupting the "quick" release of 3.4. Since Scott is doing most of the
> legwork currently it was easy to let him continue his work as he is used
> to.
> 
> But we all agree that there should be no "secret" privileged place for
> updates of course.
> 
> > A much better alternative would be to have a marker file on the regular update
> > stream indicate the latest 'safe' update (for some value of safe). Cool
> > bl33ding edge hackers could ignore the marker, while regular users (using
> > 'Update from server') would have their updates stop at the number indicated in
> > the marker file.
> > 
> > Then everyone could decide for themselves how bleeding edge they'd like to be,
> > and how much they want to contribute to pre-alpha testing.
> > 
> > The absolutely most vital thing if Squeak's to be a success under the new
> > model of governance is to make it as transparent as possible. No hidden areas
> > for some 'privileged' people, the only privileges we should hand out is
> > decision privileges, not information privileges.
> 
> Again I wholeheartedly agree and this is one of the things I really
> tried to push in the mission statement. That is also one of the reasons
> we keep all discussions on this list and not off list. Consider this a
> remnant that will go away very soon.
> 
> I think a focused effort to bring about the new Harvesting tool would be
> the best way to proceed. Hacking the update mechanism just seems like a
> "hack" that will not give us anything really. We are just about (any
> day) to open 3.5alpha and IMHO alpha means on the bl33ding goddamn
> hold-on-it's-gonna-blow edge and when we have that stream open I think
> we can simply ditch the "secret" internal stream and then just get the
> new tool out the door before we try to turn 3.5 into beta (at which
> point such a tool will be much more needed).
> 
> Please guys, lets use the new alpha stream as ALPHA is meant to - push
> stuff into it and let the ALPHA-testers take the hit. We need to let
> FIXes go into it with much less scrutiny in order to keep up. IMHO, the
> only scrutiny we really need to do is to verify that it is indeed FIXes
> and not additions to the bloating image.
> 
> regards, Göran
> 
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