Toward version 2.8

Dan Ingalls Dan.Ingalls at disney.com
Sun Apr 2 17:10:22 UTC 2000


Folks -

We're converging on a plan for Squeak 2.8, so I thought I would let you know how it looks.

What it will contain:

	Everything now in 2.8alpha

	Modular projects

	Project Swapping

	Stephan's Fast Large Ints

	New VM (segment fixes, fast fail, fast LgInts, non-local retn fix, etc).

	Possibly also some modular restructuring of the VM, depending on how 
		far Tim gets and how much time we have to integrate it.

	Possibly an alternate syntax that everyone can play with.

	Opening project will be morphic (though MVC still available and better than ever ;-)

	Opening screen and playWithMe's redone to serve more as
		introductions to the various aspects of Squeak.
		One will take you into an unbounded internet space.

The plan is to get all this stuff assembled for a release this month.  I thought it was going to be this week, but we all continue to run flat-out with the release not quite at the top of our list.  My target is around April 20th right now.

There will probably be another release (2.9) not long after (some time in May?) to tie up any loose ends in modular projects (may need some fine tuning), with environments working right (modular image and swapping), and possibly more of the graphics rework.  If we don't get the modular VM changes out in 2.8, then this would be a time to complete that work as well.

Looking forward, it's our hope that 2.9 will give us a stable foundation for the next few months of work.  During that period we will be focussed on the new graphics system underneath, and a new end-user access layer on top.

As soon as Ian can bundle up a J3 system (probably for 2.6) we'll start to fold that into the main line release process.  Hopefully that could the be brought forward to be part of the 2.9 release.

	- Dan






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