[Webteam] 2nd Draft of About section

[Göran Krampe]

Hi all!

> Larry Trutter skrev:
>> The latest version of the draft is now at
>> http://wwwtest.squeak.org/About/ .
>> All the links are there and tested. Feel free to double-check.

Ok, here comes a lengthy feedback post. Sorry for being late but I didn't
want to give feedback since I felt I was the wrong guy doing it (since I
wrote the frontpage which had much of this text - but IMHO in a carefully
discussed and improved form). But here goes anyway:

First sentence:
"Squeak is a highly portable"

Possibly the first parts of this paragraph feel a bit redundant after the
bullet list:

"Every release includes platform-independent support for color,
sound,network access, and a full complement of developer tools with
complete source code."

Perhaps:

"Every release includes the complete source code for everything, including
developments tools."

This part feels old and I believe my version (which has been removed) was
better:
"Windows NT, XP, Windows CE(it runs on the Cassiopeia and the HP320LX),"

...should perhaps be like this:
"most flavors of Windows including CE/PocketPC, all common flavors of UNIX
and Linux, Acorn RiscOS, OS/2 and even a bare chip (the Mitsubishi
M32R/D)."

Hmmmm, let me just quote my original "merged and improved" bullet list
that got scrapped:

"    * A largely Smalltalk-80 and ANSI Smalltalk X3J20 compatible
language and system libraries
    * A virtual machine written in Squeak itself, making it easy to
debug, analyze, and change ensuring the same behavior on the different
supported platforms
    * A bit identical compact 32-bit direct pointer object memory with
very little overhead per object
    * A simple yet efficient incremental hybrid generation scavenging
mark and sweep garbage collector supporting efficient bulk-mutation of
objects
    * A plugin system for the virtual machine with optional plugins for
most parts outside the core like networking, file I/O, sound and
graphics
    * Bit-identical execution including graphics on all major computing
platforms including all major versions of Windows, MacOS and Unix/Linux,
OS/2 Warp and RiscOS. And if your platform wasn't included in that list,
Squeak is easy to port. :)"

I still think my bullet list is mostly better due to many reasons:
- It mentions compatibility with X3J20 and Smalltalk-80 early on.
- It includes the "VM written in itself" as a feature.
- It merged the "bit identical" bit into the bullet on the object memory.
- It explained in a bit more detail how advanced the GC is.
- It mentions the VM plugin system which is a strong feature.
- It mentions OS/2 Warp and does not mention old stuff like the Cassiopeia
etc. And people hardly knows what CE is these days - it is PocketPC. And
it mentions Linux separately, which is good both because some people do
not consider Linux to be Unix and because it *should* be mentioned. :)

So I am not sure why we went back to the old bullet list. Feel free to
merge them again somehow.

I would consider scratching this paragraph (too vague IMHO and that whole
section gets a bit too "fluffy"):
"Many meaningful and motivating projects helps them develop as logical
thinkers, and helps them understand the workings of the new technologies
that they encounter everywhere in their everyday lives."

This paragraph is not entirely true (IIRC some newer images do not
necessarily run on older VMs). I would also change "interpreter" to
"virtual machine" in any case:

"Any image file will run on any interpreter even if it was saved on
completely different hardware, with a completely different OS (or no OS at
all!)."

Strike "interpreter" in:
"including the virtual machine interpreter"

Typos:

"Squeakís virtual machine"  "as ìa portable"

In fact, there seems to be a general problem with quoting:

ìa system as immediate and tactile as a sketch pad, in which you can
effortlessly mingle writing, drawing, painting, and all the structured
leverage of computer science. Moverover, imagine that every aspect of that
system is described in itself and equally amenable to examination and
composition.î

I guess it should be "could" in this sentence:
"that should be programmed"

Ok, feel free to do whatever you feel is good. I just feel slightly
annoyed that the text I worked with quite a lot more or less got "thrown
away".

regards, Göran