[Vm-dev] Alien: separate core, tests and win32 into own packages

Eliot Miranda eliot.miranda at gmail.com
Sat Mar 3 18:20:27 UTC 2018



> On Mar 2, 2018, at 2:51 AM, Torsten Bergmann <astares at gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> as already discussed it would be good to have the packages in Alien more modular 
> (separate the tests, separate platform dependent part from core functionality). 
> Also this would allow to use Alien core functionality in more minimal Smalltalk images 
> where there is no SUnit or windows support needed or wanted. 
> 
> The issue was already discussed in January and thankfully Eliot as the engineer behind Alien 
> gave his OK with the request that the repo is kept and version stamps are preserved. 
> I now was able to devote some minutes to this task.

Thanks Torsten!  I wonder if there's a useful way of marking the transition, such as committing a version of Alien with an author stamp such as PackageDecomposed...

> 
> For all to reproduce what was done:
> ===================================
> The most recent valid version found in squeaksource.com/Alien from Eliot 
> was "Alien-eem.44.mcz" from 23 February 2018.
> 
> This package is now split into the following packages/MCZ's:
> 
>        - Alien-Core-tbn.100.mcz 
>        - Alien-Tests-Core-tbn.100.mcz 
>        - Alien-Win32-tbn.100.mcz 
> 
> based on exactly this latest version from Eliot.
> 
> You will find them in the Alien repository: http://squeaksource.com/Alien.html
> 
> With this the "Alien" MCZ package line is now deprecated.
> 
> Please continue to contribute and develop on 
> - "Alien-Core" for core functionality
> - "Alien-Tests-Core" for tests on core functionality
> - "Alien-Win32" for windows specific functionality
> to move Alien forward.
> 
> Side note:
> ======
> The switch to the high version number 100 was done to avoid confusion 
> as there were already "Alien-Core", "Alien-Tests" and "Alien-Win32" 
> in squeaksource.com/Alien back from 2009 to 2012. This also allows to 
> continue to show the most recent version on top in Monticello.
> 
> I clearly documented the split as well as the reasoning behind using 
> version number 100 onwards in the comments of the new packages.
> 
> Additionally:
> =======
> - I created an Alien-tbn.45.mcz with the change to empty out the
>   now deprecated "Alien-xxx.yy.mcz" package line and mention in the
>   comment to now use the new modular packages
> - I double checked the loading of the modular packages in a fresh Squeak 
>  image   
> - I also double checked that the version information on authors and timestamp
>  is kept 
> - as this was only a repackaging activity no code was changed and the 118 tests 
>  are still green
> 
> I did the repackaging very carefully and verified proper loading as well. What I can not
> do is to change all the places where it is used.
> 
> I hope you all (and especially Eliot) can support this in doing the necessary changes on 
> Open Smalltalk VM - maybe some VMMaker or private loading scripts need to be adopted.
> 
> Primarily it is now necessary to load the 3 packages "Alien-Core", "Alien-Tests-Core" and
> "Alien-Win32" on all places where previously "Alien" package/MCZ was loaded.
> 
> If you need to change config specs be aware that it would make sense to have "Alien-Tests-Core" 
> and "Alien-Win32" being dependent on "Alien-Core". 
> 
> Thanks
> T.


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