[Squeakfoundation]Shepherding large enhancements

goran.krampe at bluefish.se goran.krampe at bluefish.se
Wed Jun 25 16:46:30 CEST 2003


Hi all!

Daniel Vainsencher <danielv at netvision.net.il> wrote:
> Tim Rowledge <tim at sumeru.stanford.edu> wrote:
> > Doug Way <dway at riskmetrics.com> wrote:
> > >  Although it's getting 
> > > a bit late for 3.6alpha if we're moving to beta on Friday, but who knows...
> > I _really_ don't think that is a good idea. We really ought to get at
> > least the basic, decently reviewed and tested, stuff that we declared in
> > the image before changing to beta. We're not being pushed by any dumbass
> > marketing droid for a release date so let's take the luxury of at least
> > trying to achieve feature completion!
> Sorry, I'm lost. Are you saying that we should wait until someone
> reviews every single thing in the game plan? Does this include SM1.1
> which isn't released yet? and Anthony's run time fixes, which nobody
> that understands exceptions is volunteering to review?

First of all, AFAICT these are the things done from the original 3.6
game plan:

> 1 Removals
> 2 KCP
> 3 MCP
> 6 mir Network rewrite
> 7 TrueTypeTextStyle
> 11 Inclusion of SM plus related packages in the release image (though
> maintained as packages, not directly by update stream).

Of course, I can't say if KCP/MCP are "done" but at least a bunch of
stuff has gone in from those projects. SM is included now - but only
version 1.06.

And these are still hanging:

> 4 Anthony runtime enhancements (split in two - fixes and closures)
> 5 Craig's simulator fixes
> 8 Diego look style enhancements
> 9 Replace fonts with AccuFonts (mainly in order to remove the old -
> people can now load additional nice fonts themselves anyway).
> 10 SM 1.1

Out of these I think all are "built" except for SM1.1, right? They
simply need to be reviewed and pushed in. ;-)

> I think we should release this weekend what we already have finished and
> reviewed, and see if someone can help along what didn't get ready, so
> they get in early in 3.7.

When you say "release" this weekend, what do you mean by that? Doug said
"go to beta". I assume Doug means to follow the original plan, I quote:

> The release date for 3.6 final is August 1st, in keeping with the 
> 4-month release cycle idea, and the first-Friday release date within 
> the month.  Beta/Gamma dates haven't been discussed, but I would 
> propose having the gamma release 2 weeks before final, and the beta 4 
> weeks before the gamma.  (If a big problem comes up during gamma, the 
> release would be postponed by 2 weeks.)

AFAICT from all this we are "kindof" doing ok. To me it seems like
people would be much happier overall if we could squeeze these in before
going to beta - since "beta" implies all new features present:

1. TrueType. I haven't followed the last discussion, but Yoshiki did do
a new release?
2. Diego's look style enhancements. Ready to go in?
3. Simulator fixes (someone picked that ball up, right?)

The replacing of the fonts hasn't been much discussed so I assume it
could be postponed.

So... if we simply slide the "going to beta" a few days, say...
somewhere middle next week, 2nd july? That sounds like it could buy us a
few days to wrap up the three above. Doug of course has the last word.

Personally I think it is very important that the community stands behind
the release - and there *really* has been pressure about at least
TrueType and Diego's stuff so I think we should try our utmost to
accomodate that. I really do.

Finally I come to SM1.1. My life is a bit hectic this week. :-) As
always of course, but this week is a bit more. We will have our wedding
party on saturday and THEN my vacation begins which means I will be able
to push on SM1.1 for real.

Personally I think that SM doesn't *really* need to follow the rules of
"beta"/"gamma" as strictly because it is in many ways a tool built "on
top" of Squeak and not as much BEING Squeak itself. This can of course
be discussed. :-)

Anyway, I am committed to it and I really want to deliver SM1.1. I also
think it is needed to be deployed *before* we get into 3.7. Why? Because
otherwise we will start breaking 3.6 when moving forward with 3.7 - the
lack of releases will have that effect.

In practice this means that SM1.1 needs to get in place before we start
releasing new versions of the packages that are now being introduced in
3.6 (the ones being a part of official Squeak like for example Scamper,
Celeste etc). Exactly what this means to our cycle I am not sure - I can
only say that I will be working hard on it and that we will deliver
(Brian has done a great job of implementing a proper cache etc), I just
can't promise *when*.

Ok, now I hope this post can spur a productive creative discussion
instead of people "moaning and bitching" about how the process is
moving. ;-) ;-) <- Note plenty of smileys here.

We are all in this together and learning as we go. Personally I am proud
of all of us doing such a great job sofar. Marcus, Daniel, Doug and
Brent has really gotten the harvesting going for example (sorry if I
missed any names here).

As Marcus (I think) said - this is meant to be fun! Let's keep it that.

regards, Göran


More information about the Squeakfoundation mailing list