Howdy,

I have been dark as far as Squeak goes for the last couple of months due the
need to rewire my brain for a new job. (They want information...)
OTOH, Andres Valloud is preparing a new Squeak World Tour release. With a
couple of simple change sets, the most recent Squeak 3.1a can bootstrap a
file based repository accessor from a file based repository. Revisions of
changesets
and configurations of them may be hand built into a repository. This allows
both mainstream and experimental images to file in known combinations
of change sets in known sequences from a well known place. I will publish
the change sets for 3.1a this weekend with a message to the list when
published.

The idea is that using the simplest possible capabilities in Squeak (file
system
access and filein) we can in fact build a system that will bootstrap
whatever
flavor of Squeak one needs. It is not modular (that is coming...) but it is
consistent, revisioned and wildly portable, even cross dialect. It is not a
system 
that tracks changes during development, but it does automate a consistent
build process. The simple implementation opens the door to bringing a wide
variety 
of Smalltalk based ecosystems into correlation with each other.

Future development activities might include,
   incorporating the use of environments to isolate image based name
conflicts
   an http based repository accessor (after all, the framework uses URLS to
get revs)
   more unit tests to validate successful loading of configurations into
particular images
   use ModSqueak to more carefully manage composition of images

Finally, thanks to the folks at SqC, and a big AMEN to everything Dan has
expressed in his email. In my book, diversity is a really good thing. It is
even
better when we can easily share the best that each of us has to offer... and
leave it to the reuser to make that call as to exactly what that means.
Have to leave for work...

all my best

John Sarkela
:-}>

-- 
-- 
Folks -

A number of people have asked outright what's going on with Squeak Central
and others may be wondering the same but not asking.

I thought I would take a little time out to bring everyone up to date, not
only about to SqC itself, but also on some topics that spread out into
larger community goals.

As you know, Squeak Central has reconstituted itself as an independent
research group.  We are talking with a number of possible funding sources as
well as with various potential collaborators, but it would not be
appropriate to talk about details at this time.  The important thing is that
we (and it is mainly Alan who is carrying this process) do not want to rush
into any imperfect relationships, so it is taking some time to set up a
situation that works for everyone involved.  I can tell you that our
priorities remain...

staying together,

      making a real contribution to science and education,

   continuing to work with the Squeak community,

  sharing our work actively and openly.

Of course it is often a bit harder to focus during times of change, but on
the technical side, we've been putting energy into...

  sundry details of enabling Squeak content to load
            successfully over the web into any browser
           running on any OS on any computer,

     continued work on the scripting system and its
        relationship to squeak as a whole so that
            someday it can all be an organic whole, and
           yet it won't seem daunting at first encounter,

 increased support for composition of media within
            Squeak, seeking that "sweet spot" where things
        are still simple, but the capability spans
            most day-to-day needs while including the
            leverage of an integrated programming environment.

You'll see some of this work in the next spate of updates (today or
tomorrow), and probably more over the next month.

After issuing the pending SqC updates in the next day or two, I will contact
the "iron men" who have helped in the past to see if they would be willing
to take a pass over recently submitted updates, selecting those that seem
solid, valuable, and making sure they work with the latest updates.  [This
has been Stefan and Henrik in the past, as well as Bob Arning and others in
SqC.  If you think you would be good at this, and would like to help out, by
all means send me a message offline].  Finally, when they are assembled,
I'll issue these other updates.

The process of judgement, QA, and integration of fixes and enhancements is
crucial to the ecology of an evolving open system. It is a systemic
contribution whose value is probably greater than any single clever
algorithm in the system.  While this has been handled informally in the
past, either through my sporadic bursts of responsibility, or with the help
of other committed souls, I feel that this would be an excellent early focus
for SqF.  It takes work, but not too much, it needs to weigh the greatest
good for the greatest number in the system and in the community, it advances
the system, and it enhances the experience of a system that grows and
improves with each contribution from its community.

The importance of merging contributions from the community brings to mind
the need for a package architecture in Squeak.  Many people have already
pointed out this need (it's even a current topic), so I don't think I need
to argue the case.  The benefits would include:

a framework for ensuring the composability of the
      various subsystems that make up a complete squeak image.

       the ability to pick and choose among various facilities
and configure an image with these and little more.

     the ability to build minimal systems that are well-behaved
     with regard to facilities that are missing

But perhaps the most important benefit for the community would be to reduce
the "tyranny of the monolithic image" by which too little gets included in
the release for fear it would be too hard to strip out (Connectors,
Cassowary, MathMorphs, for example), and too much gets included in the
release for fear that if it is not included it will get orphaned as the
system evolves forward (VM Construction, Wonderland, Speech Synthesis for
example).

I propose that we start a thread on this topic (message already sent, though
it was intended to follow) to assess what we have to start with, and who
might be willing to carry something through to completion.  As with many
facilities in Squeak, I'm hoping we can strike a reasonable compromise
whereby most code looks no more complicated, the kernel as delivered is well
factored, people who just want to hack will not be burdened, but those who
wish to produce well-behaved packages will have simple but adequate tools at
their disposal.

Hopefully, just by coming together around this particular need, we'll
generate some good cooperative energy.  But I think this project is also
special in that, when completed, it will be the context for an entire future
of better sharing and collaboration around Squeak.

That's it for now

- Dan, for all of us at SqC



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