Hi, happy Easter!

As you might know already, I am helping to collect bug fixes and 
enhancements for the Squeak base image.  I'm using the mailing list as main 
source.  To speed up this process, you could help me by following these 
recommendations:

+ ALWAYS mark bug fixes by adding [FIX] to the subject line and 
enhancements for the base images by adding [ENH].  If you just noticed a 
bug but cannot provide a fix, please use [BUG].  As I've still some 1000 
messages to catch up, I must rely on mail filters.

+ ALWAYS use the change set format (.cs) when publishing code.  Otherwise I 
need to create one from your source which not only takes more time but also 
makes me the author of the change.

Please choose a meanful title, add yourself as author and add a problem 
description, how to reproduce it and what you fixed.  This helps me to 
understand the problem and to check for conflicts - especially if the 
change set provided was done for an older version of Squeak.

+ Please add change sets ALWAYS as binary attachment.  Make sure that your 
mail tool doesn't put the source into the body of the mail and/or changes 
tabs into spaces or fiddles around with the line ending 
convention.  Squeak's .cs files are BINARIES.

If you use EUDORA for example, you can switch on "text as attachment" which 
should do the right thing.  It's really annoying to switch back the line 
ending stuff to Squeak format and replace spaces with tabs again.

If in doubt, use .gz compression to assure binary mode.  Also use .gz 
compression if the change set is larger than a few KB.  If you think, your 
change is too large for the list (let's say more than 10 KB), still send it 
directly to me if smaller than 100 KB. I prefer this over getting the 
change set from the web myself.


Another 30 updates for 2.8a should be available in the next few days.

These are mostly from April and March submissions.  If YOU provided a fix 
or an enhancement meant for the base image but never saw it as an official 
update, drop me a short note as we probably had overlooked it.  You can see 
the pending list of updates at www.3plu4.de/squeak.

We're always looking for more submissions, so if you think about helping, 
here's my hit list of what kind of changes I'd like to see.  I'm kind of 
extreme (as in eXtreme programming) and "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" 
is NO rule here.

+ bug fixes - broken things need to be fixed ASAP.  But keep in mind how 
the bug impacts the rest of the system.  If refactoring is needed, do this 
also.

+ refactorings - if you can provide a better, shorter, better communicating 
alternative to existing source code, please send it in.  If you see bad 
code, rewrite it.  If you see missing commments, add them.

+ speed improvements - if you detect a major performance problem, please 
provide your optimizations.  If it makes the code even simpler and better 
communicating, great.

+ usability improvements - if a small enhancement can greately improve the 
usability of the tools, add it.  Keep in mind refactorings.

+ other enhancements - if I like it, I recommend to add it :-)


bye
--
Stefan Matthias Aust // Bevor wir fallen, fallen wir lieber auf