At 12:39 PM 8/19/2001 -0400, Bijan Parsia wrote:
>--On Saturday, August 18, 2001 9:27 PM -0400 Marcio Marchini 
><mqm at magma.ca> wrote:
>...
>>         If you have a mini web server (headless) running in Squeak, I'd 
>> say the
>>Smalltalk compiler and the Transcript support aren't really needed.
>
>Perhaps, but should we really optimize for the absolute minimal case?

We shouldn't be optimizing for the minimal cause; however, we should be 
enabling the minimal case.

>>You're
>>not compiling new code, and you can log messages to stdout or a file. So,
>>I'd say they do not belong to a minimal kernel.
>
>Well, I disagree at *least* as far as the compiler. Dan *did* say "I would 
>like to go farther with this by using the OS for the transcript, so that 
>all this thing can really do is read in the next package."
>
>Two points: yes on the "Transcript to stdout or file" but also this is a 
>kernal minimal enough for bootstrapping (i.e., reading in the next package).

This is where it's important to make the distinction between "components" 
and "modules".  When thinking about modules, you don't have to worry about 
bootrstrapping.  Modules get externally assembled. If you have a set of 
proto-kernel modules with orthogonal functionality you can assemble them 
into a variety of actual kernels that support different usages. Some of 
those kernels wound support dynamic component binding (hence booting 
strapping) while others might only support complete, self-contained 
applications.

Allen