[VM][OSPP] bug alert: OSProcess breaks with recent SVN source tree

[David T. Lewis]

On Mon, Jun 13, 2005 at 04:49:12PM -0700, Tim Rowledge wrote:
> In message <20050612120808.A7735 at conch.msen.com>
>           "David T. Lewis" <lewis at mail.msen.com> wrote:
> 
> > Note: The right thing to do is to have a global sessionID that can be used
> > by any plugin that requires it, which currently is FilePlugin, SocketPlugin,
> > and OSProcessPlugin. It probably is also a good idea to make the value
> > available through a primitive, similar to the way we obtain system time
> > or timezone offset. That would make sessionID available to the image for
> > purposes of e.g. identifying unique Squeak sessions on the internet.
> I agree strongly. I even have your old code for this sitting around. The issue
> is that a plugin expecting the vm to supply session id would have to run with a
> vm able to so do. It seems some people mix releases and might get upset by
> this. Personally I say to hell with them. Others might disagree.

In principle, this is very important (maintaining backward compatibility
such that an external plugin will work with a VM that might not be at
the same version level). In practice, it is unlikely that a Squeak user
would mix a newer FilePlugin with and older VM, since most folks obtain
and install both at the same time.

A conservative approach would be to introduce the changes into the VM,
then update the FilePlugin, SocketPlugin, and OSPP about 12 months
later. But really I don't think it's necessary to be so conservative
in this case. It's not as though we're burning the disk packs.

Dave