Colin Putney wrote:

> On Nov 18, 2003, at 12:29 PM, Peter van Rooijen wrote:
>
>> Goran, Stephane, et.al.,
>>
>> I saw your discussion about code control: dependencies (module
>> requirements), package configurations, bundles, packages, etc.
>>
>> I have some experience and have done some work in this area, and I 
>> thought
>> it might be helpful to present a code control scheme that I feel 
>> could work
>> well for Squeak. It's a design that is quite a bit lighter-weight 
>> than Envy
>> or
>> StORE, and much more powerful than simple class categories and 
>> variants of
>> that. It requires no change to the way the image works with code, yet it
>> provides versioning, dependency management, build control, and 
>> support for
>> a distributed repository.
>>
>> I would be happy for this design to be used as a basis for discussion or
>> implementation.
>
>
> Not to be too undiplomatic, but I'm wary of going down that path. It's 
> not so much that I don't like the design as that I'm uncomfortable 
> with the approach. The past is littered with similar projects that 
> failed, despite the soundness of their design or the excellence of 
> their implementations. 


I agree with this sentiment.  I think the overall goal here to become 
more effective at collaborating on development projects than we are 
today.  And, we need to be careful to not pursue the perfect solution at 
the expense of a good solution. 

For those of us who have the misfortune of knowing other systems like 
Envy, Team/V, sToRe (is that the correct capitalization  ;) ), or 
ObjectStudio Team Edition (have to throw that one in because I helped 
design and develop it) it's easy to go off on tangets trying to solve 
every problem with code management and team development.  Those systems 
also tend to skew our view of the problem (i.e. they are good at 
tracking everything, but is that really required for us to more 
effectively collaborate on projects?).  And, we sometimes further hinder 
ourselves by trying to solve the more thorny issues (like class and 
selector name spaces issues, loading multiple versions of things, 
unloading, etc).

- Stephen

P.S.  I hope my previous message on this topic wasn't too curt and taken 
the wrong away...I do appreciate Peter's thoughts on this subject, I 
just think the design is flawed and a bit too far reaching for what is 
needed right now.