Swan, Dean wrote:
Colin,
I agree that code management is one of the problems that is trying to be addressed by the modules effort(s).
So again, I don't think I understand your concern. Are you saying that you prefer the SM/DVS route to 3.3 modules?
Well, I guess that is more or less what I'm saying.
How do you define "modular" and "monolithic?"
I save an image, and when I restart a Squeak VM, it comes back with *everything* exactly the way I left it. I call that "monolithic".
Your point that keeping multiple Squeak images around is a "Good Thing" is significant (IMO). Squeak is a "virtual machine" and running multiple virtual machines on one "real" machine with different images in each is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
I start up a Sqeak VM and it goes hunting all over my disk (and possibly the network) looking for bits and pieces that it thinks it's supposed to have to build an image before I can do anything useful. That would be one kind of "modular", and I wouldn't like it.
I don't think that's what's being said though. Colin (and others) is saying that you need to be able to easily add and remove pieces from your image. We're not talking about running the pieces from outside the image, having to go looking for them on the Net or whatever. The desire is to have a way to easily control what is in your image so when you save, everything is not only the way you left it, but the way you *want* it.
Julian