Squeak Starter

Les Tyrrell tyrrell at canis.uiuc.edu
Wed Oct 16 21:59:16 UTC 2002


----- Original Message -----
From: "John Sarkela" <sarkela at cox.net>
To: <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2002 2:17 PM
Subject: Re: Squeak Starter


> Hi gang,
>
> After a year away from Smalltalk I have come back to the light.
> Still catching up on all the changes... phew quite a task.
> Still much of the chatter reminds me of my reaction to
> Les Miserables... "such a lot of fuss over a piece of toast!" ;-}>

Well, I am sorry to see things going like this.  I don't recall volunteering
any effort on the current incarnation of Modules in Squeak, but I do recall
warning of the difficulty of this task based on my own experiences with Oasis.
I look at these posts and to me it seems that folks have seriously
underestimated this problem- I get the distinct impression that everyone
involved expected this to be a slam-dunk.  It's not.  There are a lot of
folks, including myself, who have a distinct interest in this.  We are all
blind.  Please do not get too excited when one of us says that "Modules are
Trees!" while another says that "Modules are Ropes!".

As for complaints about a lack of assistance... this is a recurring theme in
most large Squeak projects.  I've posted many times over the years about what
I was doing with Oasis- to me, it seemed that noone was interested.  However,
folks were interested... but busy.  This happens.  Happened to me, happened to
Eric Clayberg ( I think... re: Pocket St ).  Happened to the StrongTalk foks,
I'd imagine - I'm very interested in that project, but busy.  Happened to lots
of people.  Don't undertake a large project and expect a lot of feedback- lack
of it does not mean that the project has no interest, just that you need to
approach the buy-in a bit differently.  The techniques for gaining buy-in that
I tried failed, but that doesn't mean that what I was doing was of no value.
I thought it was sufficient to let people know what I was doing- that was not
correct.

We are a small community, but a rather intelligent one.  The problems we
routinely tackle are not always easy ones.  There have been a lot of
constructive contributions to the modules discussions, and those should all be
considered.  Somewhere in there, a system that makes sense for the highly
dynamic Smalltalk world is lurking.

I'd be happy to talk with anyone at OOPSLA this year about Squeak & Modules.
I can only discuss my own efforts regarding Oasis ( as I said, I've been
rather busy ), but I am always happy to share whatever meaningful ( or
meaningless ) insights I may have.

- les





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