Hannes Hirzel <hannes.hirzel.squeaklist at bluewin.ch> wrote:
> > > Squeak; in fact you guides are considering shipping a broken image right
> > > now, with 
 ...
> > I was under the impression that this minor lack (I'm reluctant to call
> > it a bug ;)) has been present in Squeak for a very long time. 
 
> The bug is  not present in the release 3.2 which is still *the* download 
> people are told to get when visiting www.squeak.org. 

Thank you.  I stand corrected.

> See my test report
> http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/squeak/1549922
 
> If it is minor or not depends on what you intend Squeak to use for.

...

> It was broken some time ago. But in general that is not 
> an argument for shipping something broken.

Fair enough.  However, there is still the trade off between making the
many improvements available now versus delaying those improvements
because of concern over a bug (I am now less reluctant to call it a bug)
that most people can live with for a little longer.

I guess my main interest is in the philosophy of these trade offs,
including the definitions of alpha, beta, gamma.  If it were as simple
as saying we have two candidate images ready to go: one of which is 3.4g
with its flaws but many benefits and the other has all the benefits of
3.4g but has no bugs and no missing class comments and no remaining
areas which could benefit from refactoring; then it would be clear which
image I would be in favor of releasing as 3.4 final.  Of course, the
trade offs are not so simple (and I am not saying you said they were!).

> The bug fix will be rolled in version 3.5 with a planned release date
> for end of this month.

Great.

> > > Edmund is just proposes to declare to have international script support
> > > as a long term goal for Squeak.
> > 
> > Long term, with plenty of thought, might not be so bad.  
> 
> Great that you agree!

Yes, I agree.

> Well we international non-Anglo-Saxon / non-Spanish users do not
> consider proper language support "kitchen sink".

Ah, surely no one is opposed to proper language support.  That still
leaves room for careful consideration of what is proper and what trade
offs are available and what must be in the core and what may be
installable.


-- Frank