MC in basic

Michael Latta lattam at mac.com
Tue Dec 14 21:34:01 UTC 2004


Thee is a big difference between "keep in mind" and "ensure their 
integrity".  The former is a reasonable request, and should be backed 
up by the list, as in our response to on the fly compilation.  The 
latter requires fixing bugs in code that Stephane does not understand.  
The latter is the job of the maintainers of the multi-media code.  At 
work I do infrastructure, and I occasionally change interfaces.  When 
the changes are easy I try to fix their usages, but in many cases I am 
forced to notify those responsible that they were impacted.

Who has responsibility for various multi-media packages?  As an 
outsider it sounds like you really want a more active maintainer of 
those aspects of the system.  If there is none doing that job, that is 
your real problem.  It is not possible to move any aspect of the system 
forward and maintain backward compatibility.  If backward compatibility 
is a requirement all you can do is add things, you can not even fix 
bugs, as there is often some code that relied on that "broken" 
behavior.  You can try to minimize the pain, but it still requires 
active maintenance.

Michael




On Dec 14, 2004, at 1:09 PM, Jeffrey T. Read wrote:

>
> On Dec 14, 2004, at 3:46 PM, Michael Latta wrote:
>>
>> So you can ask Stephane all you want to work on multi-media, but that 
>> is not an option (from comments posted earlier).  Wishing will not 
>> make that so.  This is not uncaring, just reality.  If there are 
>> programmers willing and able to work on multi-media aspects, they 
>> will need to adjust to a changing core, or they can argue that the 
>> core is fine, and needs no changes.  As I see it either Stephane and 
>> company can either improve the core of Squeak, with others helping 
>> for the multi-media changes, or they will be forced to start a 
>> separate Smalltalk project, and the Squeak community risks losing not 
>> just them, but those that are interested in the core more than 
>> multi-media.  If that happens, the core could stagnate, and so on.  I 
>> applaud Stephane and company for coming back to working with this 
>> community, and Andreas for questioning how to keep the multi-media 
>> aspects functional and improving as well.  If the multi-media types 
>> bail that is the same as a fork, it is just a silent one.
>>
>
> I'm not asking Stephane to work on the multimedia. I'm just saying, if 
> you are going to work on the core, do it in a way so that the 
> multimedia stuff is included in your vision. Personally I'm interested 
> in seeing the evolution of the core AND of multimedia: a solid core 
> means benefits for the multimedia side. And as I mentioned uplist, 
> Stef's core changes could be of great benefit to Squeak. But at the 
> end of the day, the multimedia features are what make Squeak Squeak, 
> and in my opinion a core developer should keep these multimedia 
> aspects in mind, and ensure their integrity, if he is developing 
> Squeak itself. (If he is using Squeak a basis for some other kind of 
> Smalltalk, that's different.)
>
> My message was intended to provide a bit of vision and focus for 
> Squeakers as a team, coming from a "what will end users think Squeak 
> is" standpoint, because the list seems to be moving its focus from the 
> multimedia stuff to Monticello and other things, when it comes to 
> decisions like what goes into base and what doesn't; and what breaks 
> when Stef tries to implement his changes. It was not intended to tell 
> Stef or anyone else what to work on.
>
> --Jeff
>
>




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