On 07.04.2010, at 04:33, DeNigris Sean wrote:
Squeak gurus (I'll have to appeal to the gods next),
I was living the the personal dynamic media dream - new Squeak image, every object alive and available, the digital world was my oyster... until I tried to load some packages...
I just spent a half a day (with much appreciated support from IRC) trying to install packages - and failed at almost every one: I wanted to install Scamper, but the SqueakMap Package Loader seems to be broken on the current Squeak (downloaded 4.0 from squeak.org). No prob, I'll download metacello from squeaksource - no dice, error there too. Gofer seemed to download okay, but failed some of it's unit tests. Now, I just found the "Package Universe Browser," which I never even heard of before (and I've read every book, wiki, bathroom wall, etc. related to Squeak), but doesn't seem to have any of the latest versions. So much time went by that I actually forgot what I was doing to begin with - oh yeah scamper... I went directly to squeaksource and was totally confused because there were several packages there with no explanation (that I could find) about what each one was, or did, or whether it was even necessary or optional or merely related), so I started loading packages from the Scamper page at random via Monticello Browser, and... it didn't work: Scamper open. -> Error. It was only after a pointer from IRC that I found a different Scamper project that installed okay.
I finally got Shout to install after trying 2 or 3 ways, but no matter what I did, I couldn't seem to install OCompletion.
What am I missing/what is the first choice way to install packages in Squeak? Especially basic developer tools like code-completion and syntax highlighting?
Thanks.
Sean DeNigris
To get syntax highlighting etc. you should try the 4.1 release candidate, which has a lot of fixes over 4.0:
In general, external packages are in a sorrow state. Only a few are actively maintained. Scamper is not, as you discovered.
Providing a collection of "good" packages with a release is one of the goals of 4.2.
- Bert -