On Sun, 18 Jun 2000 11:09:14 -0400 Paul Fernhout <pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:
>What stops me from pursuing building up an image (besides time) is in
>large part the issue of forking. It really seems that a application
>deployment version of Squeak would have to be separately maintained
>until such time as Squeak Central and others started to base their work
>on it. Is there any way to resolve this?

Paul,

While an ideal solution may be a bit out of reach at the moment, I think that good results can be had from the shrinking process. If you take the shinking code in SystemDictionary as a start and then add the heuristics developed by Stefan and others, I think you could fairly easily build a shrinker that would remove certain portions of the system. A user could then specify the parts wanted or not wanted and rules would then determine which classes/methods/objects would need to be removed/modified. Adding this shrinker to the image would allow others to experiment with their own preferred combinations. Changes to the shrinker could be submitted to improve its efficiency, correct for problems discovered and adapt to changes in the rest of the image. Part of the problem now is that those who try to shrink an image are often working alone without the benefit of what others have discovered. Making the shrinker part of the image would provide them with a common forum for advancing the cause.

Cheers,
Bob