Two important issues... - on Issue 2

diegogomezdeck at consultar.com diegogomezdeck at consultar.com
Fri Feb 14 14:25:23 UTC 2003


Hi Göran and list,

> Issue 2
> ========
>
> Issue 2 is somewhat peripherally connected to the above. Traits is
> standing outside our pretty little Smalltalk-80 descendant house and is
> knocking on the door. What does this mean? If Traits was a package -
> where should we put it? In core? Ok, that would essentially mean that
> Squeak is taking a step away from Smalltalk. Squeak simply isn't a
> "Smalltalk-80 clone" anymore. And the argument that Traits is optional
> to use doesn't hold - people *will* use it and that will change *a
> lot*.
>
> Personally I do think it could be placed in core. It seems to be such
> an elegant extension solving a lot of problems. But some people
> probably wants Squeak to stay as a "Smalltalk clone" and be as
> compatible with other Smalltalks as possible. Well, I am not one of
> them - but it will be interesting to see the discussion unfold.
>
> What if we put Traits in "Extra" then? Sure, that is a compromise that
> may work. But then we will loose a lot of the real good use of Traits -
> to untangle our core packages like for example Collections or Morphic.
> Because we can't have packages in core depending on packages outside of
> core. So that doesn't really sound like an interesting option.
>
> So, again - a very interesting challenge I think. Are we going into the
> future or are we staying in the eighties? :-) Can we do both?

I feel we'll be not able to make the next step.

Don't misunderstand me. I *really* want to see (and to be part on) the next
step! but "We have too much ballast in our balloon".

Every time somebody suggest a change we hear a lot of voices saying "Don't
please! Compatibility!".

Traits is a good example. I'm not sure that Traits is the way to go, but
I'm sure we have to try! But this list is more motivated in un-important
discussions (like native widgets, access to relational databases,
deployment as executables, etc).

The are a lot of other things to try (examples: remove of direct access of
variables, more metaprogramming facilities, etc, etc, etc).

Solution? I haven't one. I'm only describing my feeling with Squeak since
SqC had leaved Disney.

> Well, fire away. But let's keep it civil. ;-)
>
> regards, Göran

c u,

Diego Gomez Deck





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