Hi Ken--
Just as you left #squeak earlier I was about to comment that I had also been talking about Spoon and you in #squeak-cafe which we do not log as policy and I was going to give you my comments and let you respond if you wished... feel free to quote and correct me on #squeak or anywhere as you like.
Since I don't know who else was on #squeak at that moment, squeak-dev seems like the place... hi, everyone. :)
One of the reason for the naming of Spoon was that it was a fork and the spin was 'Spoon is not a fork!' ;)"
Actually, I always acknowledged that Spoon may remain a fork; it all depends on what people think of the design. Rather than having a singular message of "Spoon is not a fork", I was defining a "spoon" as "a fork produced with the hope that it is integrated later". See [1], item 5.
Unfortunately Spoon still relies too much on Craig and rises and falls with his individual circumstances. Which I believe he would completely acknowledge.
Indeed I do. This project has an inherent bootstrapping phase where adding more people (at a distance) is a hindrance, not a help. That period has certainly gone on longer than I'd hoped, because paid work takes precedence.
He planned it to be different as of the last release, but something went wrong there.
Actually, the plan was for that to be different with the 2008-12-21 release, which I missed.
Spoon does require VM changes and ships with a modified one, but the changes are minor. The plan is to much much simplify the VM for Spoon though.
Those things are both true.
(This next part was only in a private mail message from you, but I don't think you'll mind me quoting it.)
I think the community could benefit from a discussion of Spoon/Squeak 5.0, the current status, immediate plans, and rough ideas of schedule on squeak-dev. Even just the clarification that you have lots of ideas but that personal circumstances have gotten in the way of progress in the immediate future is useful information that the community should have. Some might (and I know do) have ideas they would like to consider exploring during 4.x but have held off on the idea that 5.0 is right around the corner. That's not really fair to anyone.
Well, we're not held to any particular duration for the 4 series (i.e., I'm not forcing anyone to hold off on anything), but I'm happy to provide information about Spoon.
Current status: I have a headful object memory with editions in it describing its classes, methods, modules, etc. (see [2] for terminology). I have a minimal object memory, and I have another headful memory with tools in it for manipulating memories remotely (remote system browser, remote inspectors, remote debugger, etc.).
Both the minimal memory and the tools memory can connect to the history memory and use that instead of a changes file. I can do traditional things like looking up versions of a particular method, but also more sophisticated queries (for example, methods written by a particular author over some time period, removed over some other period, and that access a particular instance variable).
My current task is creating a minimal history memory, to go along with the minimal memory. I'm transferring editions for all the components of the minimal memory into a copy of the minimal memory, and fixing bugs that I uncover in the process. Then I'll have the pieces of the next Spoon system: a minimal object memory, and a minimal history memory that describes it. I will release that, along with changesets for the remote tools that previous (3.2 to 4.0) object memories can use. Then people can start composing Naiad modules for all the behavior that I removed (e.g., graphics support).
In August 2007, I got a new job[3]. This had obvious pluses, but one big minus is that it takes up most of my time. It's not as bad as it could be, since I arranged to keep Mondays available for working on Squeak (by giving up Mondays at the job). But it's also not enough to keep to a timely release schedule, apparently. Spoon is enough to keep me busy full-time, at least until the module system is usable. The current phase of development is enabling collaboration, but unfortunately the bootstrapping I'm doing is not a task well divided between multiple people.
At this time last year, I thought limiting paid work to four days a week would suffice for working on Spoon and releasing Naiad by the end of the year, while helping coordinate the Squeak community. I missed my goal, so I was wrong about that.
-C
[1] http://netjam.org/spoon/faqs [2] http://netjam.org/spoon/naiad [3] see "Research Meets Chocolate" in http://palblog.fxpal.com/?m=200902
-- Craig Latta www.netjam.org next show: 2009-03-13 (www.thishere.org)