Karl Ramberg <karl.ramberg at chello.se> wrote:
> Hans Martin Mosner has made parts ( that are done )
> of his SCAN / Collage tools available: 
> http://squeak.heeg.de:8080/

I checked SCAN out.  It seems very well done, but it is much more server
oriented then what I was thinking of.  I was thinking of a solution that
wouldn't require a database.  Something more peer-to-peer.

Imagine connecting to another Squeak image and sending the #size message
to one of its collection objects.  You would expect the normal #size
response, but you have no guarantee.  But if you can say execute #size
with respect to the Squeak3.1 package (and here is my Squeak3.1 package
in case you don't have it) then you know what's being executed.  I know
I'm getting away from object-oriented encapsulation, but I came up with
this solution when trying to devise a way to write distributed programs.
 This is a way of saying: if you claim to be an instance of class
Collection then I expect you to respond to #size the way Collections do
in the Squeak3.1 package.  In fact, no matter what your class is I
expect you to respond the way your class defines in Squeak3.1 package. 
And if your class is not in Squeak3.1 then raise an exception.  Classes
will have to have globally unique ids as well, so we know we're talking
about the same class.

I guess this is an attempt to make images look the same when sharing
data, so they behave predictably, but at the same time allow them to be
different.  Presumably, messages received from the outside will run in
their own process in their own environment (the one requested of them),
while the UI process (and other processes) will run in separate
environments unaffected.

Cheers,
Anthony