On Sun, 15 Sep 2002 danielv at netvision.net.il wrote:

> * The name of method categories. If a category begins with an asteriks,
> all the method in it are considered to be parts of a class extension,
> which has a separate node than the class.
>
> For example:
>
> Object>>mimeType references MIMEDocument, and thus creates a bad
> dependency. Rename it's method category from MIME to *Network-Url, and
> the dependency is gone.
>
> As far as dependency detection knows, it's part of a class extension in
> the system category Network-Url.
>
> The next step we need is a menu item on SystemCategories that allows you
> to file out the class in the category,
>  plus all the methods in extension method categories named like itself,
>  minus all the methods in itself, that live in class extension
> categories that are not itself.

One of the tools in my "DVS" system (which helps manage Squeak code using
CVS or similar) does almost exactly this.  I'd been using a slightly
different convention for class extension categories, but I will gladly
adapt my code to use the * and post it.

The fileIn part of DVS is slightly more interesting, btw - it'll compare
either two whole fileOuts or a diff file between them, and generate a
changeset based on the differences.  So it's easy to synchronize your
image with a file on disk - fileOut, diff, and fileIn the changes.
This relies on the same notion of lightweight module that Daniel is
pushing here.  I think it's a great way to go.

Avi