Old call for volunteers still up to date

Stephane Ducasse ducasse at iam.unibe.ch
Sun Apr 9 09:22:23 UTC 2000


Hi

long time ago 
(january 11) Dan sent the following call for volunteers.

I would like to know if somethign happened.

Folks -

This is another topic on which we have been around at least once before.  The 
last time we discussed it, I channelled it into a project where I suggested a 
number of ANSI (or other de-facto) compatibility issues might be addressed 
together.  This was a mistake.  Like a political bills with too many barnacles, 
the effort pretty much died there.

The issue is of low priority to SqC, and that is why we haven't done more 
(though Vassili Bykov did notice that I recently implemented #'string for 
symbol'). That was easy because I knew it didn't conflict with anything else in 
Squeak.

The proposals before us are not so simple, because code such as
        strm nextPutAll: 'named: '; print name; cr
will fail if Symbols print differently.

However, it is clear to me that this would be a Good Thing, and this is the 
perfect time to make such a change.  2.7 is out and we have plenty of time to 
shake down this kind of change in 2.8alpha.

Here is a proposal for getting it done:

1)  Some brave soul or (as we used to say in the 60's) affinity group steps 
forward to draft a spec for better Symbol and Array printOn: (and whatever 
not-too-vast set of other things that should accompany them).

2)  We (all Squeakies) bless this, and someone implements it.

3)  It then gets circulated for review and test as a fileIn (not an update).

4)  We beat on it for a week, and report/fix bugs as usual.

5)  As soon as it looks reasonable, I'll put it out as an update for 2.8alpha, 
where it will get lots more testing before 2.8 is done.

Does this sound like an effective approach?

Do we have some volunteers?

        - Dan
Stephane DUCASSE (ducasse at iam.unibe.ch) http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~ducasse/
"if you knew today was your last day on earth, what would you do 
different? ... especially if, by doing something different, today 
might not be your last day on earth" Calvin&Hobbes

University of Bern, Institut fuer informatik and Mathematik
IAM-SCG, 10 neubruckstrasse, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland.






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