A squeak3.4 VM will be needed

Andreas Raab andreas.raab at gmx.de
Sun Jan 19 12:48:04 UTC 2003


Doug,

> I notice final 3.2 Windows bundle had "Squeak.exe" for the VM 
> filename. I don't remember now if a double-clicked image looks
> for that exact filename... if it does, no big deal, leave it alone. 
> If not, we might as well call it something like "Squeak 3.4 VM.exe"
> for the 3.4 bundle.

Nitpick: Most people new to Squeak who do not know about the significance of
the "image" will double click the executable and NOT the image. Therefore it
is mostly not the image that "looks for a file name" but rather the VM (and
I went to some length to make this work in a way that the VM will - unless
it is ambigious - find the "right" image).

Secondly, even many people who do know about "images" probably do not have a
persistent association between "image" files and the executable in which
case they are likely to use DnD for starting Squeak.

Only if they have an association between .image and a Squeak VM the system
will go digging for it. And here, the file name of the VM matters only
insofar as that there are no real choices - the registry only says "start
C:\Foo\Bar\Squeak.exe when the user double clicks on an image". (so there
are no choices for *all* of the images).

The latter is partly why I like naming the VM just "Squeak.exe" for all but
the most experienced Squeakers. It encourages them to think about the VM as
"essentially the same" across all versions (which is true - you can run
everything back to Squeak 1.1 on the latest VMs) and (for the largest part)
not to worry about "uh... now this is Squeak 3.4 VM ... will this work if I
try to start Squeak3.2.image with it???"

Cheers,
  - Andreas




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