On Wed, 2003-05-07 at 00:55, Andreas Raab wrote:
> Okay, let me try: 'file system support' in this context means something that
> is perceived as critical for the majority of the users of the system.

So that'd be 'file system support' and 'ship it' understood as in a
run-of-the-mill Linux distribution, say Debian.

> Which makes me think ... perhaps I'm really fighting for the name more than
> the content. I want the name "Squeak" be associated with a playful media
> environment, not with a "development architecture". 
>
I'd replace 'development architecture' with 'platform'. I think Squeak's
a platform every bit the same as Linux is, or Windows is. But if you
want to reserve the Squeak name for one particular configuration on that
platform (the multimedia thingy we all like, whether we want to use
Squeak *also* for other things or not), fine with me. But it does gets
us back into nomenclature area - a place where you can spend a lot of
time having fun, but maybe not the place to take this discussion to.

Let me give two reasons, before I go to bed ;-), why I think that
Squeak-as-a-platform is necessary:
1. It enforces modularity. MCP and KCP seem to indicate that this is not
a luxury item. I think modularity as in 'build up an image from a small
starting point' is a necessity of life if Squeak-the-multimedia-thingy
is to become more complex than now.
2. It attracts more users. If some want to see it as
Squeak-the-Smalltalk-IDE, or Squeak-the-application-server, and we can
support them by doing 1., so much the better. 
3. (it's late, I'm bad at counting just before bed-time) It helps
parallelization. The 'fanning out, zooming in' that Debian masters so
well somehow seems to help in having thousands of developers work in
some loosely-coordinated, ant-heap like way to move forward really fast
and effective. The end result would still be
Squeak-the-multimedia-thingy (just as my Debian box is a full
environment), but nothing would stop Squeak-the-printer-VM from being
possible.

Anyway, I'm not sure whether these arguments are of any use here. A
question, Andreas - are you just unhappy with the 'appropriation' of the
name 'Squeak' for anything not Squeak-the-multimedia-thingy or do you
generally feel unhappy about the whole 'hack it up in small bits'
project?

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