Final 3.6 Plan

diegogomezdeck at consultar.com diegogomezdeck at consultar.com
Wed May 14 09:03:22 UTC 2003


First of all:

    Thank you very much for this communication effort!

I have some questions & comments.

[snip]
> - [Harvesting has stalled recently]
>   Harvesting has stalled a bit recently because of a couple of things,
> I think... Mostly, we probably just need more harvesters.  I'll be
> sending out a request to the list soon about this.

I think this direction is the correct one. We need more Harvesters.

[snip]
> - [KCP/MCP status]
>   The approved KCP items will be incorporated very soon, hopefully
> tomorrow.
> The MCP stuff has also been approved, and so it could be added soon
> afterward,
> although someone will need to check for conflicts with the removals and
>  also
> the KCP items.  We should try to get the MCP stuff incorporated within
> a few
> days of the KCP stuff, so that we can proceed with everything else.

Great!

[snip]
> ------------
> Plan for 3.6
[snip]
> 2. Then when we have a reduced image we move forward with some
> aggressive harvesting. Sure, we have performed harvesting during step 1
> above - but not "the heavy stuff" since we wanted to concentrate on the
> removals. The following areas should probably deserve our *primary
> attention* beside the regular harvesting:
> 	1. Work produced by MCP.
> 	2. Work produced by KCP.
> 	3. Anthony's runtime enhancements.
> 	4. Craig's simulator fixes.
> 	5. Substantial enhancements currently on SM need to be reviewed and
> possibly applied.  (Including Michael's networking rewrite,
> TrueTypeTextStyle,
> etc.)
>
> Number 5 above refers to packages on SM that essentially are
> improvements that could be merged into their appropriate package inside
> the image. For example, if there are very nice improvements to Morphic
> they could be folded in as long as they don't "produce inter-package
> dependencies". (Some inter-package dependencies will be normal.  The
> main point is that the package should be reasonably easy to remove
> again later.) Since it will take a long time before Morphic turns into
> a real external package we can't keep these on hold. We will compile a
> list of the packages that could be considered.

[Q] What means "We" in this context? We=Guides or We=Community?

Some of us shown interest in my look changes  (
http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/3142 ). I propose to include it.

[snip]
> 3. Remove the fonts and replace them with... what? We have had
> discussion about using AccuFonts or something else as a better
> "default" in the image. More discussion on this please.

If we include TrueTypeTextStyle, we can use the new "free" true type fonts
(I don't remember the name but I read on /. about this)

> 4. Move over to SM1.1 which I am working on. This will be an essential
> step during 3.6 in order to get package releases and a proper package
> cache. Since 3.6 is the first release really relying on SM we simply
> can't do without versions of packages, which is in the brewing SM1.1.
> We also would like to be able to rely on a proper package cache since
> this would open up nicer options in how we deliver Squeak, see below
> for some ideas. The move shouldn't be necessary early in the cycle -
> just as long as we do it before 3.6 turns official. And of course the
> sooner the better. :-)

Great!

> Packaging
>
> Squeak 3.6 will be packaged slightly different. One rather nice
> way would be to package in two different zip-files:
> 	1. Basic image + subset of SqueakMap package cache suitable to
reach a
> Full image. This gives the user both the Basic image and the ability to
> easily load a loadscript to reach the Full image.
> 	2. Basic image + a full SqueakMap package cache. This gives the user
> all packages available on SqueakMap in one big Zip.
>
> Obviously the package cache would also include the load script to
> produce the Full image and perhaps even have it as a clickable link in
> a Readme or something. We could also revise the SM "bootstrap" to be
> less "chatty" I think.
>
> [Providing a Full image with the release - Additional notes from Doug]
>   In addition to the current 3.6 Basic image, the Full image
> functionality will also be made easily available as part of the final
> 3.6
> release.  But we still haven't decided whether we will provide it as a
> second
> image to download, or whether it will only be provided as a one-click
> bootstrap sort of thing from the Basic 3.6 image.  I know Goran has
> mentioned
> that having a one-image release (w/bootstrap) would be simpler, but I
> think
> I'm still leaning toward having two separate images (both available on
> squeak.org) as the release.  Either way would probably work, though.
> Ned is
> working on a removal/addition package for the demo "Worlds of Squeak"
> projects.

We can include more load-on-demand demo projects to show more features of
Squeak.

[Q] This load-on-demand project will consider the dependencies? (Example:
We can include a project to show the Text2Speech features but this features
will be not present in the image. Clicking on the ProjectThumbnail will
install the package?)

[snip]
> regards, Göran & Doug


Thanks for your work,

Diego





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