Hi Joshua!

"Joshua 'Schwa' Gargus" <schwa at cc.gatech.edu> wrote:
> On Mon, May 12, 2003 at 03:36:24PM +0100, goran.krampe at bluefish.se wrote:
> > Hi Andreas!
> > 
> > "Andreas Raab" <andreas.raab at gmx.de> wrote:
> > > Hi Göran,
> > > 
> > > [Comments from the back seat ;-]
> > 
> > ;-)
> >  
> > > > > Your proposal will help us remember that, yes, so-and-so proposed
> > > > > such-and-such, but won't help code into the image unless there is
> > > > > a change in attitude about what gets in and what doesn't.
> > > > 
> > > > What do you mean with "change in attitude"?
> > > 
> > > I guess Josh means the same thing that I mean - a concentration on pure
> > > minimalism. For example, your quote says "as long as it doesn't introduce
> > > inter-package dependencies". Now there are packages where this is perfectly
> > > reasonable; for example if one would take the facial animation package and
> > > hook it up with speech synthesis you'd get plenty of dependencies and
> > > rightfully so.
> > 
> > Well, don't make everything so darn black and white! Of course we are
> > talking about judgement calls here. But you must surely agree with the
> > long term goal of partitioning the image into packages with well
> > understood interdependencies? I surely hope.
> 
> Definitely.  But let's take a less controversial example.  What if I made some
> improvements to the facial animation package such as fixing bugs, writing 
> comments, and adding more examples.  This wouldn't work against modularization,
> but I still get the feeling the getting it accepted would be an uphill battle.

A *very simple answer*: NO. :-)

If you fix bugs (most likely to not introduce messy deps), write
comments (does *not* introduce messy deps) and add examples (most likely
to not introduce messy deps) then it would simply be a god damn dream to
harvest!

So why on earth do you think it would be an uphill battle to get it
accepted?! Is it because FIXes etc don't seem to get into the stream?
This would be a natural conclusion. But it has very little if almost
nothing to do with any "policy" - its just that the harvesting process
is stalling!

We have been trying to get it running better and it is better now - but
people are simply not harvesting enough (or fast enough). I am
personally listed as a harvester but I have no time to put there! I am
100% busy writing lenghty emails trying to do what I call "community
nursing" and trying to get SM1.1 into the water.

[SNIP]
> > Well, I hope not. I just want people to realize that we are in a
> > different situation now.
> > There is no SqC anymore. Simple as that. As Guides we will of course try
> > to revise the mission statement - I have already promised to work for
> > that. But we can not "promise" to work in a certain direction just
> > because SqC did that, everybody must understand that. We can only work
> > in those directions that the community is showing real interest in
> > going. 
> 
> Isn't it still showing interest in this direction?
> 
> > And by that I mean not just posting on the list "Please go in
> > this direction.". 
> 
> I never asked that.  It was more like "Please acknowledge that a
> substantial number of Squeakers are going in this direction".  Even if
> it is not the majority of Squeakers, it is still a significant
> proportion; very few other open source projects have such a high
> proportion.  Since it is one of the things that makes Squeak unique,
> why not be explicit about it?

And what direction are we talking about? And what other directions do we
have out there in the community? Please don't turn this into some silly
"war" over which direction should be acknowledged in the mission
statement. We will give it our best shot (to revise the mission
statement) - please let's drop it for some time to let us do that and
then we will see how it looks. ;-)

[BIG SNIP]
> > I am starting to suspect you will not be pleased with us until we
> > promise to simply just continue on the same path that SqC/Alan staked
> > out. And I will not do that. Sorry.
> > 
> > What if *I* have a grand vision that simply has nothing to do with your
> > vision?! What makes your/Alan's vision more important to pursue than
> > mine? In short - what makes you or Alan better than me?
>  
> Well, leaving aside the connotations of "better", Alan's vision has
> resulted in Smalltalk, which is a pretty big feather in his cap (heh
> heh, I just had a mental image involving a green felt hat and a huge
> peacock feather :-).  When he says that we can do far better, he has
> more credibility than practically anyone else.

Well, I knew I was going to get an answer like that. It is so obvious -
who does Goran think he is? Compared to Alan Kay? ;-)

The point is - this is an open source project. Nobody pays anyone. We
are all here for different reasons. But we all want to make Squeak
better. The best. In many different directions. But improvement is
something we can all vouch for.

And in the end we do what we want to do. Not because someone tells us -
but because we want to. I as a Guide do not want to stake out a
direction for all you other guys. Who am I to do that?

> For myself, I don't claim to be better than anyone.

Not me neither. Ok, I give up on all this. My arguments are totally
exhausted. If I haven't managed to get my points through at this time I
will never do. As I have said - we will revise the mission statement.
And as I have also said - harvesting *is* going forward. Sure it has
been lagging. We are trying to get it working again better. No there is
no "hidden policy" about what goes in or not. But there is a general
direction about partitioning the image.

And you know what? When a package is broken out of the image there will
be a maintainer (or Steward if it is an official package) that will deal
with leading the process of improving it - NOT THE GUIDES.

> Best,
> Joshua

regards, Göran