[Modules] finding the little buggers

Henrik Gedenryd Henrik.Gedenryd at lucs.lu.se
Sat Aug 18 09:28:35 UTC 2001


Les Tyrrell wrote:

> I would argue _slightly_ against what you are proposing here.  I do agree that
> as far as the user is concerned, they should not be presented with a
> bewildering 
> variety of places to go looking for bits and pieces of code.  However, I would
> not want that to mean that there is literally only a single repository in
> existence- at least not in the sense of one server, sitting on one machine,
> for 
> the entire planet.
> 
> HOWEVER.  I *DO* want it to feel like that is the case, in the sense that the
> user is presented the illusion of having rapid, unified access to everything
> ever written for Squeak ( or any other Smalltalk ) on the entire planet,
> sitting 
> on their hard drive.

I think what Les is saying here is that there should not be a single,
central repository, but a global, shared registry/database in which anyone
can register their Squeak package and let this point to the actual
repository.

You should be able to set up your own registry if you wish, like anyone
should be able to set up their repository. There would just be a designated
central registry. It would also need a scheme for structuring things. I
think the Java/Internet domains scheme is ok, as others have said.

I think this is what Les meant because this is what I wanted to say ;-)

Andrew G spake:

>> It also works because the elements of the repository are sequential and
>> conflict-free.  This is a critical and often unstated assumption.  It would
>> appear that one could not support multiple, non-sequential forks using the
>> repository without serious risk of conflicts.

I think updates will need to be tied to packages (versions of packages) and
thereby namespaces. Thus there will be multiple streams with options for
fine-grained control. But there will also be the big Squeak superpacks (cf.
current decimal releases) that include many smaller threads. So you would
get all these by selecting the big one. Ie. you  can keep it simple if you
wish.

Henrik






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