Hi Jerry and all!

As one of he Squeak Guides I thought I should chip in with a few
reflections, and while doing so I realized that the post was turning
into a status report about the community so I realized we should
probably have a  monthly little status report from the Guides trying to
tell everyone what is going on - it's *a lot* now.

So I took the liberty of changing the subject line to reflect this, hope
that is ok. :-)

NOTE: This is a report based mostly on my personal view on what is going
on. Please remember that. I may for example simply be wrong about stuff
- it has been known to happen. ;-)

Jerry Balzano <gjbalzano at ucsd.edu> wrote:
> >Thank you for these comments, Jerry. I think you're bringing up important
> >points.  I think it needs to be emphasized over and over again that Squeak
> >is a research system. It is not a completed product, but a work in
> >progress, and that causes ome of the frustrations teachers and other
> >novices experience.
> 
> But John, I really don't consider myself a "novice" in the sense that I
> think you mean.  NetLogo (the Illinois version of StarLogo)  is a research
> system too, but I have learned to program in it pretty well, and to teach
> others to program in it pretty effectively themselves, **even though it is
> much "harder" than Squeak**.

Are you here referring to eToys or Squeak as in Smalltalk? I assume
eToys and in that area I am a complete idiot so I will not imply that I
have any answers to that. From what I have seen and read though
(SqueakNews had a lot of interesting articles about eToys/kids/schools,
and who stole my CDs at OOPSLA btw? Grrr.) eToys probably works pretty
fine **with proper guidance**. Just a hunch.

> And NetLogo/StarLogo is a moving target too, but *nothing* (maybe in the
> whole Universe) moves as fast as Squeak.  2005 posts to SqueakDev in the
> month of February alone!  The plea from me is to slow the train down enough

But wait a minute - now we are talking about Squeak and not eToys. Those
two must be kept separate in this discussion. Or at least we need to be
aware of that separation. :-) Even though the activity is high on the
list, currently eToys is more or less sitting still (right guys?).

And frankly, the noise/signal ratio has gone up a bit I think, but I am
not sure - on the other hand that is natural given the current
development, read on.

One thing I am sure about is that the community is "waking up" and we
are having a hard time trying to coordinate all the discussions and
decisions. I think it is gradually sinking in that SqC isn't around
anymore and the community - that's us - we need to stand on our own
feet. And people are standing up a lot. :-) So it's probably a kindof
"rush" right now that may cool down. In short - a lot is happening but I
think we - as a community - are still coping.

One very good example of "people standing up" is the documentation
project steaming ahead by first cleaning up the Squeak Swiki - a juicy
job, but I think they are doing fine. I just hope they will have some
energy left in the end to try to keep it in the good shape they are
bringing it to. :-) And btw, this project does generate quite a lot of
traffic on the list - for very good reasons.

In general I think we are doing "ok" so far, even though I myself feel
like my head is spinning. :-)

> to let some of us who are in the education business do what we do best to
> show what you do best to the best possible advantage.  As it is, we both
> lose.  Is that too harsh?  I don't know; but it seems to me even the people
> developing Squeak, some of whom may care not at all about education, are
> moving so fast in potentially different directions that it is very
> difficult to coordinate their (your) efforts.  That can't be optimal for
> their (your?) goals either, can it?

Well, coordination is hard. But this is open source doing what it does
best. Evolution.
Or you can call it chaos if you like! :-)

In short - I don't think we are capable of "slowing down". Honestly. But
we *are* capable of making the ride more enjoyable. The
sociology/psychology of open source is quite interesting - people are
here to have fun, scratch itches, learn and of course simply to use
Squeak. But I don't think we can tell people to "slow down". That would
be like telling people what to do in their spare time! Obviously people
do what the heck they like in their spare time. :-)

But again - we can make the ride less bumpy. In very, very short, this
is what is going on in that sense right now:

1. Documentation project, see http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/808
This project is cleaning up the Swiki to start with. Exactly how they
are proceeding after that is still open I think, there are ideas about
an interactive reference "Magic book" inside Squeak and much more. They
are also actively writing new/missing class comments. This has
revitalized the whole "documentation question" with a lot of interesting
ideas. We will see where it leads - the cool part is that somebody is
*doing* something instead of talking about it.

2. Morphic cleanup project (MCP), see
http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/3005
This project is doing an overhaul of Morphic. And they are moving in an
impressive speed and are automating a lot of parts of their process.
These procedures that they are developing have turned out as a
"template" for other projects, especially the KCP project below.

3. Kernel cleanup project (KCP), see
http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/3083
The SCG group in Berne are digging into the deep, meta-mythical kernel
of Squeak with intentions of making it better/simpler/cleaner. And they
are very capable to succeed. They are also stepping up to the plate to
become Stewards of the kernel. Being a Steward is a concept that has
been coined on the list and it is essentially being a "package
maintainer" for a part of "base" Squeak - typically some part that is
currently in the standard image. The community have not yet (!!) given
them the "official" approvement as Stewards of the kernel but I think
this is simply an oversight. Yes, I did look through the thread in
question but I couldn't find any "definitive decision" even though all
who responded were positive. In order to not drag this out any more I
just posted a "decision time" post on the sqf-list where the Guides
communicate. If all guides agree then its "official", otherwise we will
simply discuss it further.

4. The Guides are leading the discussions/decisions about how the
releases should work and how we "harvest" all the abundant improvements
to Squeak that we are swimming in. Currently we are deciding how/what
version 3.5 will be. This is a big subject and there are tons of threads
regarding this area.

5. SqueakMap is slowly moving forward. The current version is pretty
stable - there is one or two silly bugs but apart from that it is
ticking like a clock. Thank god. This weekend I will try hard to get
SM1.1 cooking and out the door in a first alpha! Yep, my soon-to-be-wife
is going away so, hehe, I can code all night long... ;-) SM1.1 will make
SqueakMap hopefully work much more "as it should" and make it much
easier for all of us to keep the universe of packages in good coherent
shape.

I have probably missed a few projects going on like Marcus Denker's
brilliant TEST-project and many others (forgive me) but all in all
almost everything going on right now is about making the ride **less**
bumpy. This is IMHO an important observation. We are **not** simply
hacking away in various directions.

> >Any programming environment provides challenges to non-expert users, and
> >expert help is often needed. In my opinion many who promote computers as
> >tools for learning say too little about the amount of support teachers and
> >students need in order to get good results.
> 
> Amen to your second sentence; I am not quite "in the trenches" but I am
> closer than most, and believe me, I know this.  As to your first sentence,
> this is part of my point, and it requires a willing suspension of disbelief
> on your part: Why can I not provide something even close to "expert help"
> on Squeak, when given comparable amounts of time on half a dozen other
> languages/environments I have been more than equal to the task?  And if
> it's true for me, how many other potential educational "middlemen" are you
> losing?  Do you care?

We care. And while I am not sure I agree with the fact that we are
"loosing educational middlemen" (at least not in Squeak in general,
eToys is something I don't know about) do you have any more concrete
proposals other than simply slowing down? This is an honest question, I
am not trying to sound arrogant. It is just that I don't really know
what we can/should do that we aren't trying!

Currently the whole community is on their toes and "all ears" - the
energy is high. We can do **anything** (just look at those crazy guys
digging into Morphic, jikes ;-) ) right now. And it is simply a joy to
me - Squeak is finally standing on its own!

But to get back to your question: eToys in particular is tricky - I will
leave that area to someone much more capable than me: ...eh, someone?

> 		-Jerry

regards, Göran

PS. Again, I hope you didn't mind me splashing this monthly report all
over your thread... Perhaps it was a bad idea, well, whatever.