----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew C. Greenberg" <werdna at mucow.com>
To: <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 1:17 PM
Subject: Re: Stability of Squeak


> On Tuesday, August 14, 2001, at 07:31 AM, robin wrote:
>
> > In my commercial work, I'm used to the idea that even code which has
> > been
> > thoroughly tested, with a seemingly comprehensive set of test cases by
> > the
> > developers (exaustive/exhausting testing), will often fall apart under
> > seemingly obvious condition when real users first use it.  With squeak,
> > it
> > seems that the idea is that everyone is developer - the only people who
> > are
> > 'just users' are newbies.
>
> Squeak is hardly seeing its "first users" now.  I, too, was a newbie at

I didn't say "first users" so I assume you're not quoting me there.  After
any piece of software has been changed, there is the possibility that new
bugs are introduced, or old ones revealed.  I understood squeak to be a
software system which is constantly under development.

> one time who experienced no ill performance during my initiation.  My
> wife and children have been using Squeak without any catastrophic
> failure as well.  My colleagues at the firm who use my Squeak-based
> patent writing tools have never reported a crash.  Sheila's students at
> Terrace Elementary School have likewise managed not to crash the VM.  A
> software-development client of mine adopted Squeak for rapid prototyping
> and they, too, haven't had reported to me any disasters (although I
> haven't really asked them -- I'll check up on this).  Are they all
> developers as well?
>

My understanding (again I could be wrong) was that part of the philosophy of
Squeak, and the earlier Smalltalk 80 systems was that anyone could change
them for their own creative purposes, and that the simplicity of the system
was intended to foster this.  I was alluding to this when I said 'everyone
is a developer'.  I do recognize that this doesn't stop people from using it
without ever trying to program it. Perhaps I was too literal in my
expression.

> For me, at least, Squeak has been solid as a rock -- among the most
> stable development platforms on which I have worked.  Frankly, the
> instability you are reporting is foreign to me -- I simply never
> experienced it, and neither have the people (professionals, newbies,
> adults and kids) here who are working on Squeak.
>

I'm very glad to hear it.  My main reason for asking about this was to get
an idea of what other people's experiences were.

> > I'm also aware that without enough information to reproduce a bug, in
> > 99% of
> > cases there's little that can be done - from a scientific perspective it
> > might even be said not to exist.  In future, I'll make sure to include
> > it.
>
> We still don't even know your configuration or system version, let alone
> the symptoms you have identified as a crash.  The advice may be as
> simple as your having a bad build, or using test pilot software when you
> shouldn't -- or you may be perceiving crashes that aren't.

That's not true, although admittedly I didn't give the most detailed bug
report possible.

I DID include the date and version number of the squeak build, the platform
(windows - I didn't say which though), what I did to cause the 'crashes',
how the squeak behaved after the crashes, and the squeak process' behaviour
in terms of CPU and virtual memory.  I also put forward some of my own
speculation about what I might have done to cause them.

In both cases, the behaviour fitted my definition of a crash. I didn't say
the VM itself had crashed. Just that the squeak system had stopped
responding.

For some reason I'm perceiving your message to be somewhat defensive -
perhaps I'm picking up the wrong tone.  My original query was to ask about
other people's perceptions of the system - not to assert instability - I've
only been using it for a few days.  I quite accept that the reasons (bad
build, test pilot s/w etc.) you put forward might well be the case.  I
thought my last message was a polite acknowledgement that I probably hadn't
given people enough information to reproduce the problem but that I was
quite happy with the responses I'd received.  I even said that it hasn't
crashed since.

Nevertheless, for whatever reason, I did experience what I regard as a
couple of crashes.  If that's rare, it means the system is probably very
stable, but I feel a little defensive as it seems to me that you are putting
my experiences into question.

I hope I'm not stupidly fanning flames here, but I feel misunderstood.

-Robin