What we want with Squeak?

diegogomezdeck at consultar.com diegogomezdeck at consultar.com
Tue May 6 11:03:43 UTC 2003


Hi,

> I think this generalization is not precise.

Every generalization is not precise. This is the reason I say "I'll try to
explain creating radicalized descriptions of these groups"

> I care about the media
> stuff much more than I can about any of the "traditional squeakers"
> topics you mentioned (cgi..).

Everybody has a foot in each group but we're not talking about individuals.
We're talking about goals for Squeak.

> What concerns me, and motivated me to start pushing in certain
> directions, is that Squeak's direction had ignored some "economic
> principles" of software development, and as a result, really was dying.
>
>
> Think back to the final days of 3.3a.
[snip]

I remember exactly the problems we had. But your comments remember me the
human ideas about dinosaurs extinction: “The dinosaurs get  extincted...”
but they was on the earth much more time than humans.

The SqC age had a lot of problems but they produce things we still are not
able to produce.

> These are pressures we simply have to respond to in order to keep
> Squeak alive and changing. This is what interests me.
>
> What I think is being collectively expressed here by many people is not
> that "media is more important than web development".

This is not a juice to “web development” at all.

The point is: Can we produce fully multimedia content and web applications
with the same tool?

As an example: I used to program web applications for living, but I can use
gnu/st, visualworks, dolphin, smalltalk/x, etc for it.

> I think what
> you're really saying is that the need for a rich loaded Squeak image is
> also critical, because that's what draws people to play with Squeak in
> the first place.

I'm trying to express my feelings: Squeak is better defined as a media-
producer than as a power-php.

> Maybe we were wrong to think we can get away with a "lean" release that
> removes stuff, without addressing the "rich image" concern immidiately,
> by having official configurations and preloaded images.

IMHO this is not the problem but the slow progress is.

> And I completely disagree with the sentiment that we don't have enough
> resources to cater to people with different tastes.

If you are right and we have enough resources the problem is worst because
we're not producing so much.

> This requires
> moving to working with configurations, and this is a big change that is
> happening slowly.

Q: Everybody agree on the politic of small-image with configurations?

IMHO, We still don't have enough support on squeak to create
packages/modules/application/parcels/theNameYouWant and we're creating much
more problem with the intent of fragmentation of the image without the
proper support.

On the other side I think there are not yet a clear solution for the
problem.  The parcels, applications, etc have a deep impact on the way of
producing with an object-environment moving the process to a more
declarative one (just in the opposite direction I'd like).

> It also require everybody to be active about making
> their stuff viable and pushing it, correctly.

I'm trying hard, beleive me! :)

> Daniel

Cheers,

Diego





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