Improving the aesthetics and usability of Squeak

Roger Vossler rvossler at qwest.net
Tue Jul 9 20:49:54 UTC 2002


Hi Gang,

I would like to add the following to Andreas' list of four points:

Point #5: the illusion that a single person or small group of dedicated 
hackers
are going to make a dent in the "modularity problem" for Squeak.

People usually start out wanting a better way in which to manage source 
code
or binary objects. After they get past simple repositories and various 
CM schemes,
they hit the "namespace" problem and the "module dependency" problem. It 
is
precisely at this point that Dr. Jekyll turns into Mr. Hyde. One is no 
longer talking
about "modules", but a complete component-based framework and 
architecture.

Moreover, from what I can tell,  Smalltalk and Squeak are highly 
integrated
development and operating environments. This is what gives them their 
strength
and makes them unique compared to what else is out there. Given this, 
there are
probably at least 1,000 different ways in which to "peel a Squeak Image" 
or decompose
it into a set of modules. Getting the Squeak community to agree on the 
best way (or
any reasonable way) in which to do this is another problem all unto 
itself.

Before anyone hits me with the old "put up or shut up" argument, been 
there and
done that: back in the late 1970, TRW spent about $17 million bucks on 
several
R&D efforts in which I participated to crack the "modularity" nut. We 
failed and the
whole shebang was canceled before more money when down the drain. I have 
not
see any evidence in the professional literature that this problem has 
been
successfully resolved since then unless one considers Java, CORBA/ORB, or
COM/DCOM to be good solutions to the "modularity" problem.

Cheers, Roger.....

On Monday, July 8, 2002, at 06:32 PM, Andreas Raab wrote:

> Stephen,
>
>> Getting modules nailed down seems like a very reasonable
>> initial step, as Alan Kay noted earlier in the thread.
>> That will help give some space to all the furry little
>> mammals to play in the same world as the big dinosaurs
>> without getting trampled, as it were.
>
> I didn't want to write this message before but I think it's time to take
> an illusion from all of you. I have the impression that a majority of
> people on this list believes that modules will solve "all the problems
> of Squeak". This is wrong on many (if not all) accounts.

[snip]




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