On Sunday 13 April 2003 06:56 am, Andreas Raab wrote:
> Bert wrote:
> > If you want to avoid referring to changeset numbers (which
> > IMHO is not a worthy goal) then you should bump up the
> > tertiary version number *each time* you put a bunch of
> > updates in the stream.
>
> Actually that raises an interesting opportunity. Right now we have
> essentially two independent mechanisms for "publishing code" - SqueakMap
> and the update stream. What if the two would get unified? What if we would
> simply include minor versions and post these as packages on SqueakMap? We
> might simply have a few packages that transform the system 3.5.1 -> 3.5.2
> -> 3.5.3 etc. Those packages would merely include the appropriate change
> sets (SARed) so it's simple to package them up. A nice thing about this
> scheme is that it would be simple to flag those update packages as "alpha",
> "beta" or "stable" and it would fit with the general scheme of things at
> SqueakMap. Once any of these packages is loaded the system gets marked
> accordingly but that's essentially it. "Official releases" would merely
> mean loading these packages and making an image/changes pair available.
>

I don't really like this because... :-)

I see SM as a system containing Community contributed software, where the 
individual maintainers post new updates to those discrete packages, and I as 
a user can choose whether to update a particular package or not. 

I see the update stream as dealing with "Core" Squeak code, bug fixes, 
enhancements, etc, as fundamentally different the SM



> Perhaps most importantly it would put the responsibility of a version
> update at the users disposal, e.g., whether to load the 3.5.3 -> 3.5.4
> package is entirely at the users request. It would allow people to update
> their system at the point where they feel that they're "ready for it" and
> not require them to make a decision on which update stream to sit on based
> on incomplete information (e.g., "uh ... do I want to get into 'final' or
> 'alpha' here").
>

I understand this line of reasoning, but I think this will lead to confusion 
on the part of users, especially new users... and when the dependency code is 
part of the mainstream SM, and I want to load Jacaranda, then it will load 
Ned's connectors and possibly.... say, bug fixes to Squeak, so it revs it 
3.5.3 or something?

I would like to see (at least I think I would at this point).. putting *all* 
bugfix type updated into the update stream... so if Magma has a bugfix posted 
to it, when I choose "Get code updates" from the World menu, it not only 
fixes my core Squeak bugs, but any installed packages I have as well (but not 
upgrading packages to new versions!)

I understand that something like that might not be practically feasible due to 
inegrating code updates from SqF vs. user contributed packages, but you did 
ask what I thought ;-)

> What do you think?
>
> Cheers,
>   - Andreas

mvh, Brian
(eh, Goran? ;-)