Hi Göran,

I have been quiet on this subject so far, because I really don't much 
about the background of this long discussion, as I really just started 
to look nito Squeak just before this thread started.

I'll be talking to the guides as a whole, based on what I have read in 
this thread.

So, what follows is my opinion, based on the facts known to me and my 
own interpretation of these facts.

goran.hultgren at bluefish.se wrote:
> Hi all!
> 
> "Andreas Raab" <andreas.raab at gmx.de> wrote:
> 
>>>>What I feel _really_ unhappy about is the complete absence 
>>>>of any vision (and action) which goes beyound "hack it up in
>>>>small bits".
> 
> Well, I have a vision. But the Guides never promised the community a
> Vision. We are trying to moderate, enable, coordinate. Not lead or
> dictate. Yes, I agree - we more or less end up leading anyway - but it
> still isn't the intention of The Guides.

It seems there is a _real_ communication problem, right from the start:

 From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:

   Guide \Guide\, n. [OE. giae, F. guide, It. guida. See {Guide},
      v. t.]
      1. A person who leads or directs another in his way or
         course, as in a strange land; one who exhibits points of
         interest to strangers; a conductor; also, that which
         guides; a guidebook.
         [1913 Webster]

      2. One who, or that which, directs another in his conduct or
         course of life; a director; a regulator.
         [1913 Webster]
[...]

If you didn't want to guide, you should have sticked to "The Experienced 
Squeakers" that's a real nice name, saying nothing - so noone would have 
had the idea that you really want to live up to your name.

How could you choose the "The Guides" when guiding has been the last 
thing you want to do? It's really beyond me.

> We don't claim to know the Single Truth about what Squeak "should be".

And noone thinks you should.

> And frankly - whichever Truth we would present there would be people
> dropping out of the community because they don't agree with that single
> truth.

Maybe. And maybe you would win others who are in favor with that single 
truth.

But very likely if you had a _vision_ you could win even people who 
don't agree with your single truth. Because a vision is even greater 
than that, and a real vision is contagious.

And _surely_ without a vision you will loose most people, because 
without a vision, or at least a communicated long term goal, people will 
lose confidence in Squeak.

Noone and nothing can be really alive without a vision.

>>>Well, that *is* the strategy. One I'm all in favour of. 
>>
>>You are confirming my worst fears.
> 
> Why? Personally the strategy is one that I am also much in favour of. If
> you think it is a bad strategy then I would like to know why.

A strategy, as well as it may be, is worth nothing without a goal that 
is to be reached by that strategy. And from all you _say_ this seems to 
be missing

>>>So if you ask me "what is the implicit strategic vision behind what
>>>we're currently attempting to do", it is (ugly buzzword warning) to
>>>redefine Squeak as a platform (an operating system done 
>>>right) which is distributed, by default, as a rich personal
>>>multimedia environment.

Sorry, noone will believe that this is really your _vision_. A vision is 
alive. Above sentence has just been made up.

>>With not a single thought being put into the "rich personal multimedia
>>environment" part? And you think that this will work (yeah, maybe for a year
>>or two). You're going to end up as a competitor of any of the other
>>scripting languages, just not a good one.
> 
> Now you are not being fair. Again - I think the most important role of
> the Guides is to *enable* different directions to coexist. That is my
> personal vision. To make Squeak - as a tool and as a community -
> *scale*. Just like Debian does.
> 
> And if there are a lot of people in the community working out really
> cool multimedia stuff then I am just the happier. 

It's still not the right thing for a real vision, but it gets nearer.

>>>The end result for 3.7 should be that the default download image
>>>(kitchensink, in cdegrootspeak) from Squeak.org should look 
>>>*exactly* as it looks now
>>
>>Just my problem. It will look *exactly* the same for the next ten years if
>>there isn't any vision about where to go.
> 
> 
> Now you snipped the part where Cees added that he hoped it would include
> a lot of new stuff - and you are also deliberately "misunderstanding
> him" because you know - as well as we all do - that Cees was trying to
> emphasize that the image will still be there, just like it is today.
> 
> It's just that it will not be as bloody messed up as you guys managed to
> get it. (just couldn't resist)
> 
> 
>>Ah, shoot. Why am I even writing this. The battle is lost anyways. There is
> 
> 
> What battle? How do you mean lost? You aren't getting away that easily -
> tell me exactly what your perceived problem is instead. Is it that we
> don't all share the Golden Goal of Rich Multimedia? Or is it that you
> don't think we are doing the Guiding part good enough?
> 
> 
>>simply nothing I can do convince the guides that the media (and many other)
>>stuff is as important as any of the other activities. At least it is now
> 
> 
> Come on. We know that. But hey - why don't you just sign up as a
> Harvester and *help out* then?
> The thing we *do know* is that we simply need to get better
> infrastructure before we selfimplode. 
> 
> So yes, I personally think SM is more important right now than TrueType.
> Why? Because it is the enabler to get all those hundreds of talented
> developers engaged in the process again making 10 other TrueType
> packages to pick from!

Hey, you _can_ do it!

> SM is so damn simple. But still you didn't bother to build it did you?
> It's about *enabling distributed development*. Enabling people to
> maintain a piece of it all. It is a powerful and important thing.
> 
> As far as I remember you didn't take one single step in this direction
> when you were steering the boat.
> 
> 
>>clear to me that the original vision of Squeak is really dead today. "Thank
>>you" for making this so utterly obvious.
> 
> 
> It's not dead. Squeak has just gotten a whole bunch of other stuff going
> too.

Then, _please_ communicate it in a way that will get through to others.

Just imagine you have bought a new car a few months ago. One morning, 
while looking out your window, you realize that the hood of your car is 
open, engine parts are lying all over the, and someone is just now 
ripping your engine into parts. How would you feel? --- That's exactly 
how "multimedia squeakers" are feeling right now.

Now imagine you'd've got a telephone call the other day, telling you 
that there may be something wrong with the brakes in your car, and while 
everything seems to work well, there's a real possibility that your 
brakes will break before too long - ahh, and by the way, tomorrow 
morning someone will come to your house and check your engine.

Though the look out of your window reveals the same, your _feeling_ 
about it would be utterly different, would it not?

>>Bye,
>>  - Andreas
> 
> 
> This whole discussion is disturbing me. I thought we were doing "ok" -
> sure, the Guides aren't saving the world. We are just 6 of you guys. We
> try to do the right thing and we try to listen and moderate discussions
> - boil stuff down to decisions etc. Obviously Andreas think we are a
> complete failure - he wants us to have a Grand Vision. He wants us to
> lead the charge into the Future.
> 
> I don't know what to say. Perhaps we are failing and if all of you think
> that then hey - speak up! I don't want to put a lot of work into stuff
> that the community don't want... In that case I have better things to
> do.

I'm sorry I can't say anything about the work you do, but I strongly 
believe that your work really *is* ok.

The problem is, that, by the very name "The Guides" you have accepted a 
responsibility you seem not to have accepted. But now everyone will 
measure you by the perceived perceived role of "The Guides" and this 
includes *guiding*. And this, in turn, communication.

In closing, let me state some thoughts of mine ...

What think of when hearing the term "The Guides" (outside of the scope 
of squeak)
- A group of people who knowledge on a given topic, and a vision based 
on this vision of what should be done, where one should head to.

How "The Guides" have represented themselves on this thread (at least 
most of the time)
- Hey, we have some knowledge about squeak, but don't give dime on where 
  it's headed, we just want to code, the rest is yours.


And now let me try to summarize a VISION STATEMENT, that to the best of 
my knowledge seems to communicate what "The Guides" _really_ want for 
Squeak. (And btw, you'll see that Multimedia Squeakers may well see this 
as a valid vision for all).



Our vision is for Squeak to be a very rich development platform for all 
sorts of developers, from CGI to top notch Multimedia.

Sadly we've found that to be able to lead Squeak into the next decade, 
we have to do some ground work first, like in every garden we need to 
weed first, so that the base squeak will be able to service the 
multimedia application we want to see. (Look at it this way, would _you_ 
stick a 500PS dragster engine into an unprepared Volkswagen Beetle.)

Like always, there'll be a little rocky going ahead, please bear with us.



Stick this up as the first in the guides swiki page, and I guess you'll 
have done quite a lot against the uncertainty in the community.



Thank you for reading this far ;-)

Kind regards,


Ingo