Folks,
Over the last weeks (basically as long as I'm following this list) there have been a number of (quite high-level) discussions about purpose and principles of the SqF on this list. While I feel that these discussions are useful and necessary, I would like to see a start of more concrete projects. Perhaps it's helpful to try it the other way around and discuss the principles in the context of concrete projects (where the practical issues will ultimately arise).
While it may sound complicated to start projects in a phase where no SqF (at least formally) exists and where we also have to avoid certain issues (like money changing hands) I think that there are a number of projects that we could basically start right away, which would benefit the entire Squeak community, and also show that SqF is not only a club for debating chaordic principles (just kidding ;-) Starting some of those projects might also help finding (at least interim) project officers for some of the issues that will stay in the long-term focus of SqF.
So what could we start with in practice?! The three issues which I think are obvious no-brainers for the SqF are:
* Establish a web-presence of Squeak image releases Meaning a central list pointing out what versions exists, when they were released, what VM to use with it, an FAQ per release, etc. etc. etc.
* Establish a web-presence of Squeak VMs Meaning a central list of compiled VMs that are available, references to the source code for each version, telling people that "If the VM for version XYZ hasn't been compiled on ABC, please drop us a copy", FAQs for VMs/platforms, etc. etc. etc.
* Establish a web-presence of Squeak packages [GOODIEs] [ADDONs] etc. Meaning a central list of available packages, goodies, add-ons, telling people what this thing does, the Squeak version it has been designed for, the versions it has been successfully tested on, perhaps a swiki for posting bugs etc.
The above three are obvious issues that SqF needs to deal with concretely. They do not require any programming, they do not require money, all they do require is a couple of dedicated people for setting up the infrastructure, for making up some web pages, write a few emails, and - most importantly - keep it up-to-date. Also note that the above does require almost no server space - virtually everything is available at UIUC or on some other server world-wide. Later we can think about mirroring this stuff at some SqF server but we don't need this to get started. BTW, I'm thinking about the above mainly as a - critically needed - reorganization of the stuff that's available at the GATech Swiki (perhaps on a more robust server ;-) since there are tons of infomation available at the swiki - they just cannot be found.
In addition to these projects we may think about a few others. Two that come to my mind are (there may be more - I'm sure Paul has suggestions ;-)
* Review and coordinate a migration of Stable Squeak into the main release Although not yet released (but according to John it'll happen on the weekend) I think that this could be a very valuable task since it brings together the best of both worlds.
* Write and post a monthly "Mini Squeak FAQ" to the mailing list For one thing, this FAQ would help many beginners to find information faster (all the mini FAQ has to provide is pointers to URLs answering the questions). For another thing it could be "brought to you by the Squeakfoundation" thus raising the visibility of the SqF and establish it as a central and known entity in Squeakland.
Please note that because of my association with Squeak Central I am not volunteering for any of the stuff. If you want me to, then say so and I will, but I'd rather see the community taking the lead here.
Cheers, - Andreas
Andreas.Raab@gmx.de is widely believed to have written:
So what could we start with in practice?! The three issues which I think are obvious no-brainers for the SqF are:
Three nicely done restatements of the mishmash of previous suggestions, adding up to a very useful project. I'd make one small addition - a really useful thing to do whilst attacking these would be to make an effort to make tools (code, conceptual, procedural) to help do it next time around.
I'd make a start myself, but as mentioned before I'm about to dash across to the UK and won't have much in the way of time or net access over the next three weeks.
tim
Andreas.Raab@gmx.de wrote:
[Snip] Starting some of those projects might also help finding (at least interim) project officers for some of the issues that will stay in the long-term focus of SqF.
Agreed. Defining projects is also a good way to produce feedback on the principles and the purpose of a Chaordic organization as an iterative process. http://www.chaordic.org/what_des.html
So what could we start with in practice?! [snip]
- Establish a web-presence of Squeak image releases
Meaning a central list pointing out what versions exists, when they were released, what VM to use with it, an FAQ per release, etc. etc. etc.
- Establish a web-presence of Squeak VMs
Meaning a central list of compiled VMs that are available, references to the source code for each version, telling people that "If the VM for version XYZ hasn't been compiled on ABC, please drop us a copy", FAQs for VMs/platforms, etc. etc. etc.
- Establish a web-presence of Squeak packages [GOODIEs] [ADDONs] etc.
Meaning a central list of available packages, goodies, add-ons, telling people what this thing does, the Squeak version it has been designed for, the versions it has been successfully tested on, perhaps a swiki for posting bugs etc.
[snip] * Review and coordinate a migration of Stable Squeak
into the main release [snip]
* Write and post a monthly "Mini Squeak FAQ" to the mailing list
[more snipped]
One could also add to the organizing tasks determining who wrote the package, the licensing status for each contribution (Squeak-like, public domain, BSD, GPL, etc.), and contact info for the authors. Another related non-programming task could be going through the Squeak mailing list and mining it for summaries, ideas, discussions, and so on to build a Squeak and Smalltalk related knowledgebase.
These are all great projects. They all would certainly help address the issues Glyph Lefkowitz raised on the list recently (April 19, 2001). He linked to a page describing his experience where he downloaded approximately 50 changesets and found they would not run at all on the setup he used, or that if they ran they often conflicted with each other when he installed more than one at a time. http://twistedmatrix.com/users/glyph/rant/sqcr.html
With the exception of the mini-faq, one question to think about is why haven't these consolidation and organization projects happened already?
I certainly wouldn't say most people in the Squeak community are lazy or without resources. Time and time again people on the Squeak list demonstrate perseverance, generosity, and lots of hard work. There are also several Wikis where this sort of effort could be happening at no cost. As you point out, there are also many files already out there at easily referenced URLS, so part of the job is done already.
Perhaps this hasn't happened yet because managing this level of complexity is very hard work, and exceeds some magic threshold of what can be easily done by people currently attracted to Squeak. These projects if comprehensive would take an enormous amount of (often boring yet difficult) work sustained over a long period of time (think RedHat for Squeak). Some of that work is unavoidable. But, as a fundamentally bright but lazy programmer (which is not as incompatible with sustained hard work as one might think, paradoxically), I wouldn't want to see a few creative people doing all this work if it can be avoided or easily distributed across the community as part of daily practice.
I think Tim Rowledge is, as the Brits say, "spot on" when he wrote in another reply: "a really useful thing to do whilst attacking these would be to make an effort to make tools (code, conceptual, procedural) to help do it next time around."
Alan Kay presents a vision of the Dynabook where children learn math and science by collaboratively making a space war game. Squeak now seems to be (especially with eToy on Morphic) the premier environment for making such a game as an individual (just fork and go). However, I feel, it does not seem to yet be the premier collaborative programming environment for other than at best a small tightly-knit mostly face-to-face group (contrasted with, say, Doug Engelbart's 1968 Augment demo). http://www.bootstrap.org/
I think the lack of these well organized indexes and presentations and module details is not the problem itself. I see it more as a symptom of the actual problem. That problem is the lack of more such tools for collaborative community software development in Squeak and a lack of related infrastructure for complexity management of community developed Smalltalk software. To date the Squeak community process has been mainly about making Squeak work better. I say, we need to move on in a big way to using Squeak to make the community process work better. Yes, something like Nebraska is a step in the right direction, as would be, in my opinion, something like a peer-to-peer ENVY.
Obviously a doctor would immediately treats the injury if a patient comes in, say, with a broken leg from jumping on a trampoline at a party (and so too these projects you outline could and probably should get started now by hand to at least some extent). However, it is is likely the doctor would also point out the risks to the patient should he or she jump on a trampoline again in the future as part of a group. Due to wave dynamics, seemingly innocent backyard trampolines can cause terrible injuries seemingly at random -- literally shattering bones into thousands of fragments -- if more than one person jumps on a trampoline at a time. http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/085.html So, how can we make the Squeak "trampoline" safe for a community to jump on all at once (and still keep it fun and worth using)?
Tim's suggestion is the path between and does seem the best of both worlds, and again shows why he would be a good choice for "benevolent dictator for life".
And reiterating the comment Cees made to me about duplication of effort (posted earlier) there is no reason we can not have many people organizing lists, many people making lists and tools, and many people making tools, all without much coordination. The marketplace of the web will decide among the successes by whose work gets used and linked to. In a large community, duplication of such effort is not necessarily a bad thing.
I might add, how people work together (or not) within the Squeak Foundation is a completely different issue from perhaps having the Squeak Foundation provide a united front or one voice to the world from a Squeak marketing standpoint.
-Paul Fernhout Kurtz-Fernhout Software ========================================================= Developers of custom software and educational simulations Creators of the Garden with Insight(TM) garden simulator http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com
Paul Fernhout pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com writes:
With the exception of the mini-faq, one question to think about is why haven't these consolidation and organization projects happened already?
Excellent question. I can speak for myself:
There are also several Wikis where this sort of effort could be happening
you've hit the nail on the head :).
In other words: each time I've entered the squeak community (maybe three times over the last 3-4 years) I (a) came to the conclusion the sorts of things you describe are where I can best help and (b) looked at the web presence and fora for documentation and got scared away by the feeling of shifting sands and multiplicity. No-one wants to spend time on documentation that may or may found.
You can make a case that I allowed myself to be scared off from hard work too easily.. but my point is that this has probably happened with plenty of other potential contributors. We want the threshold for contribution to approach zero. Hence my last post.
-Simon
Andreas - yes. Just a little more prevarication from me: ok, where can I help plant this stake in the ground.. which leads us back to..
..the squeak wiki. IMHO this is the optimal place for constructing these lists, because (a) they probably partially exist there already and (b) ease of linking to more detail. Two problems -
1. <poke, prod> with no disrespect intended, the current admin(s) are not delivering uptime. 9 outages so far this month, including some of more than a day (according to http://uptime.arsdigita.com/uptime/reports.tcl?monitor_id=119512 ). I know "there'll be a server upgrade next week". But in any case,
2. the wiki is at some strange url, neither squeak.org, squeakfoundation.org, nor squeakland.org. This dilutes squeak's web presence.
True, this doesn't actually prevent me from building Andreas' lists but I only have 15 minutes and I'd like to see it solved. I'd prefer a single, stable, canonical community wiki. I'm tempted to propose doing the simplest thing that could possibly work: mirror it on squeakfoundation.org and forget minnow.
Minnow admin(s) are you on this list ? Comments anyone ?
Best regards - Simon
On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 07:27:15PM -0700, Simon Michael wrote:
Andreas - yes. Just a little more prevarication from me: ok, where can I help plant this stake in the ground.. which leads us back to..
..the squeak wiki. IMHO this is the optimal place for constructing these lists, because (a) they probably partially exist there already and (b) ease of linking to more detail. Two problems -
- <poke, prod> with no disrespect intended, the current admin(s) are
not delivering uptime. 9 outages so far this month, including some of more than a day (according to http://uptime.arsdigita.com/uptime/reports.tcl?monitor_id=119512 ). I know "there'll be a server upgrade next week". But in any case,
Don't worry. There'll be a server upgrade next week ;-)
Them's the breaks with running a research lab within a large bureaucratic organization; we can't order the machines directly to us. This isn't something that urgently needs to be solved immediately, and it isn't something that we can speed up. Just hang tight for a little bit.
- the wiki is at some strange url, neither squeak.org,
squeakfoundation.org, nor squeakland.org. This dilutes squeak's web presence.
I think that this is a very good point. What the heck is minnow.cc.gatech.edu anyway? However, this is a historical accident as a result of the fact that the Squeak Swiki started off as an experiment back in the (relative) infancy of Swiki. If you think that it is important enough to address immediately, the author and current maintainer is Je77 Rick. You can contact him at nadja@cc.gatech.edu; I'm sure he'll be glad to talk to you about the possibility of moving the Swiki out of .gatech.edu.
Tell him Schwa sent you ;-)
True, this doesn't actually prevent me from building Andreas' lists but I only have 15 minutes and I'd like to see it solved. I'd prefer a single, stable, canonical community wiki. I'm tempted to propose doing the simplest thing that could possibly work: mirror it on squeakfoundation.org and forget minnow.
Minnow admin(s) are you on this list ? Comments anyone ?
Oops, didn't read this far. AFAIK, I'm the only GaTech Squeaker on this list. But Je77's contact information is above.
Joshua
Best regards - Simon
Squeakfoundation mailing list Squeakfoundation@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/listinfo/squeakfoundation
Dear squeak swiki & squeak.org webmasters,
the squeak wiki has done long service at minnow.cc.gatech.edu. I think there is some consensus that the time has now come to locate it within the squeak.org domain, eg as swiki.squeak.org. See my comments below for a little context.
Do you agree, are you available to help, any ideas on how to make this happen ? We don't know if it requires a physical move or can be done virtually.
Thanks, -Simon
PS the squeak foundation list archives are at http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/listinfo/squeakfoundation
"Joshua 'Schwa' Gargus" schwa@cc.gatech.edu writes:
On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 07:27:15PM -0700, Simon Michael wrote:
Andreas - yes. Just a little more prevarication from me: ok, where can I help plant this stake in the ground.. which leads us back to..
..the squeak wiki. IMHO this is the optimal place for constructing these lists, because (a) they probably partially exist there already and (b) ease of linking to more detail. Two problems -
- <poke, prod> with no disrespect intended, the current admin(s) are
not delivering uptime. 9 outages so far this month, including some of more than a day (according to http://uptime.arsdigita.com/uptime/reports.tcl?monitor_id=119512 ). I know "there'll be a server upgrade next week". But in any case,
Don't worry. There'll be a server upgrade next week ;-)
Them's the breaks with running a research lab within a large bureaucratic organization; we can't order the machines directly to us. This isn't something that urgently needs to be solved immediately, and it isn't something that we can speed up. Just hang tight for a little bit.
- the wiki is at some strange url, neither squeak.org,
squeakfoundation.org, nor squeakland.org. This dilutes squeak's web presence.
I think that this is a very good point. What the heck is minnow.cc.gatech.edu anyway? However, this is a historical accident as a result of the fact that the Squeak Swiki started off as an experiment back in the (relative) infancy of Swiki. If you think that it is important enough to address immediately, the author and current maintainer is Je77 Rick. You can contact him at nadja@cc.gatech.edu; I'm sure he'll be glad to talk to you about the possibility of moving the Swiki out of .gatech.edu.
Tell him Schwa sent you ;-)
True, this doesn't actually prevent me from building Andreas' lists but I only have 15 minutes and I'd like to see it solved. I'd prefer a single, stable, canonical community wiki. I'm tempted to propose doing the simplest thing that could possibly work: mirror it on squeakfoundation.org and forget minnow.
Minnow admin(s) are you on this list ? Comments anyone ?
Oops, didn't read this far. AFAIK, I'm the only GaTech Squeaker on this list. But Je77's contact information is above.
Joshua
Best regards - Simon
Simon Michael simon@joyful.com writes:
Paul Fernhout pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com writes:
With the exception of the mini-faq, one question to think about is why haven't these consolidation and organization projects happened already?
Excellent question. I can speak for myself:
There are also several Wikis where this sort of effort could be happening
you've hit the nail on the head :).
In other words: each time I've entered the squeak community (maybe three times over the last 3-4 years) I (a) came to the conclusion the sorts of things you describe are where I can best help and (b) looked at the web presence and fora for documentation and got scared away by the feeling of shifting sands and multiplicity. No-one wants to spend time on documentation that may or may found.
You can make a case that I allowed myself to be scared off from hard work too easily.. but my point is that this has probably happened with plenty of other potential contributors. We want the threshold for contribution to approach zero. Hence my last post.
-Simon
Hi,
I've been busy writing a paper, so I've been ignoring e-mail a bit. So, here's my position:
The Squeak Swiki is fine where it is. We just got in some new servers and we will be making the upgrade in the next few days. Stability should go way up after that. So, stability is not a problem. Secondly, administering the Squeak Swiki isn't that simple. I'm still planning to make some cosmetic and some code changes. This process would be much more difficult remotely. Third, there are many links to http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak (both over the net and in publications). Though a forward swiki could be put in place, it wouldn't look all that great.
I only vaguelly see the point about having something that looks better in the URL. So, http://swiki.squeak.org/ is a decent amount better than http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/swiki. Still, I don't think it is so much better as to incur all the other disadvantages.
That being said, I think http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak is fine. You could do that without moving it off minnow. This would also make the Squeak Wiki site to be http://wiki.squeak.org/swiki. We could also set up other ones, such as http://wiki.squeak.org/squeakFoundation.
Peace and Luck!
Je77
On Tue, May 29, 2001 at 10:40:10AM -0700, Simon Michael wrote:
Dear squeak swiki & squeak.org webmasters,
the squeak wiki has done long service at minnow.cc.gatech.edu. I think there is some consensus that the time has now come to locate it within the squeak.org domain, eg as swiki.squeak.org. See my comments below for a little context.
Do you agree, are you available to help, any ideas on how to make this happen ? We don't know if it requires a physical move or can be done virtually.
Thanks, -Simon
PS the squeak foundation list archives are at http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/listinfo/squeakfoundation
"Joshua 'Schwa' Gargus" schwa@cc.gatech.edu writes:
On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 07:27:15PM -0700, Simon Michael wrote:
Andreas - yes. Just a little more prevarication from me: ok, where can I help plant this stake in the ground.. which leads us back to..
..the squeak wiki. IMHO this is the optimal place for constructing these lists, because (a) they probably partially exist there already and (b) ease of linking to more detail. Two problems -
- <poke, prod> with no disrespect intended, the current admin(s) are
not delivering uptime. 9 outages so far this month, including some of more than a day (according to http://uptime.arsdigita.com/uptime/reports.tcl?monitor_id=119512 ). I know "there'll be a server upgrade next week". But in any case,
Don't worry. There'll be a server upgrade next week ;-)
Them's the breaks with running a research lab within a large bureaucratic organization; we can't order the machines directly to us. This isn't something that urgently needs to be solved immediately, and it isn't something that we can speed up. Just hang tight for a little bit.
- the wiki is at some strange url, neither squeak.org,
squeakfoundation.org, nor squeakland.org. This dilutes squeak's web presence.
I think that this is a very good point. What the heck is minnow.cc.gatech.edu anyway? However, this is a historical accident as a result of the fact that the Squeak Swiki started off as an experiment back in the (relative) infancy of Swiki. If you think that it is important enough to address immediately, the author and current maintainer is Je77 Rick. You can contact him at nadja@cc.gatech.edu; I'm sure he'll be glad to talk to you about the possibility of moving the Swiki out of .gatech.edu.
Tell him Schwa sent you ;-)
True, this doesn't actually prevent me from building Andreas' lists but I only have 15 minutes and I'd like to see it solved. I'd prefer a single, stable, canonical community wiki. I'm tempted to propose doing the simplest thing that could possibly work: mirror it on squeakfoundation.org and forget minnow.
Minnow admin(s) are you on this list ? Comments anyone ?
Oops, didn't read this far. AFAIK, I'm the only GaTech Squeaker on this list. But Je77's contact information is above.
Joshua
Best regards - Simon
Simon Michael simon@joyful.com writes:
Paul Fernhout pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com writes:
With the exception of the mini-faq, one question to think about is why haven't these consolidation and organization projects happened already?
Excellent question. I can speak for myself:
There are also several Wikis where this sort of effort could be happening
you've hit the nail on the head :).
In other words: each time I've entered the squeak community (maybe three times over the last 3-4 years) I (a) came to the conclusion the sorts of things you describe are where I can best help and (b) looked at the web presence and fora for documentation and got scared away by the feeling of shifting sands and multiplicity. No-one wants to spend time on documentation that may or may found.
You can make a case that I allowed myself to be scared off from hard work too easily.. but my point is that this has probably happened with plenty of other potential contributors. We want the threshold for contribution to approach zero. Hence my last post.
-Simon
(catching up)
"Jochen F. Rick" nadja@cc.gatech.edu writes:
I only vaguelly see the point about having something that looks better in the URL. So, http://swiki.squeak.org/ is a decent amount better than http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/swiki. Still, I don't think it is so much better as to incur all the other disadvantages.
That being said, I think http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak is fine. You
Hi Jochen, thanks for your response.
I disagree with what you write above, for reasons mentioned in previous posts. Basically my feeling is that lack of a single stable canonical wiki with "perfect" url puts the brakes on squeak's pink-plane progress, has been putting on the brakes, and there's no good reason why we can't fix this now.
Do I overstate the case ? Possibly, maybe. Anyway I've had my say on this issue, I believe.
-Simon
squeakfoundation@lists.squeakfoundation.org
-
Andreas.Raab＠gmx.de -
Jochen F. Rick -
Joshua 'Schwa' Gargus -
Paul Fernhout -
Simon Michael -
Tim Rowledge