About 3.6 alpha process: to break the less

Daniel Vainsencher danielv at netvision.net.il
Wed Jun 4 19:18:37 UTC 2003


About the other side of the equation -
The way I did the Celeste removal, and the way I think most removals are
done, and definitely all removals should be done, is that once removed,
the image is left pluggable with regard to the package. That is,
reloading a package does not modify code in the image.

The application removed should also have its limits clearly marked - it
either belongs to a specific class category, or is described by a
PackageInfo.

These together mean that - 
1. Packages removed can be reloaded/removed at will.
2. Changes to such packages can be easily identified using PackageInfo +
DVS.

Packages that don't adhere to these rules should be fixed or declared
unofficial and removed from the Full load script.

I don't know whether usage of DVS should be mandatory - I think usage 
of PackageInfo should be. But I definitely think that PackageInfo, DVS 
and SM are things anybody interested in Squeaks future would do well 
to take a serious look at. Not for the specific implementation, but for 
the implications on what we're capable of.

Daniel

Tim Rowledge <tim at sumeru.stanford.edu> wrote:
> Daniel Vainsencher <danielv at netvision.net.il> wrote:
> 
> > Just wanted to note that this is exactly what the SM package "Upgrade to
> > 3.6 Full Image" does. Doug did this a few weeks back.
> That package deals with the other side of the equation - it _loads_ the
> packages ( and thereby relies on those packages being correctly up to
> date) but it does nothing about making it possible to dump out the code
> after you've made modifications.
> 
> Maybe DVS can handle this and we should, as Goran suggests, insist on
> use of DVS? I'll try to make time to look at it so I can be less
> tentative.  In the meantime, somebody took each system and found a way
> to write out the code before deleting it. If we have those scripts then
> we can repeat the process whenever we need to.
> 
> One thing worth remembering here is that this is
> 3.6alpha-dangerous-to-your-mental-health and we can simply abandon
> anything we don't like. If it seems really more sensible to say we
> should finish the cleanup projects before cutting out much stuff then we
> can actually do that quite simply. Yes, it will be a little inconvenient
> to some people but that's the cost of using alpha software. We have at
> least learnt another lesson about the difficulties involved in
> simplifying the image and we should take the opportunity to consider
> what tools might help us. 
> 
> tim
> --
> Tim Rowledge, tim at sumeru.stanford.edu, http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim
> "Yummy," said Pooh, as he rotated Piglet slowly on the spit.



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