Using Monticello and SqueakSource and distributing packages

Timothy Rowledge tim at sumeru.stanford.edu
Tue Feb 17 20:52:45 UTC 2004


On Feb 16, 2004, at 6:04 PM, Avi Bryant wrote:

> Have you heard of "minimalist documentation"?  See "The Nurnberg 
> Funnel: Designing Minimalist Instruction for Practical Computer Skill" 
> (ISBN 0262031639).  Ralph Johnson had me read it for this 
> pseudo-Masters program we're doing (no, I'm not kidding).
Well there's minimalist and too-little. The Minimalist philosophy of 
design for example fine with me but too often people approach it from a 
shallow instant-fix pile-em-high-and-sell-it-cheap viewpoint. Result - 
crap.
Right now the doc for MC is well into the 'too little' area. It would 
be very helpful to have some more to read.

>
> But, hey, contributions of non-minimal docs would be great.  There are 
> probably 20 or so people out there that know the system well enough to 
> write something up...
Then please folks, write something. I'd appreciate a guide to
installing it sensibly (like when to have separate repositories or not, 
what package-cache is for etc)
using it during development
making releases for other people
rescuing screwed files (vital - it will happen)
>>

>> Now the next question has to be what format should I be using to 
>> distribute the VMMaker package? And of course, how do I make it? I've 
>> been using a .sar because it allows a preamble/postscript to add 
>> temporary methods and cleanup after install.  It appears I can't 
>> simply install a .mcz file in the latest 5707 image, so I'm guessing 
>> that isn't the answer.
>
> SM2 is going into the update stream, which includes a simple bootstrap 
> installer for MC packages.  So when 3.7 is released you will indeed be 
> able to load a .mcz into a stock image.
But would that be a sensible thing to do. If, as I get the impression, 
an mcz file is a full history of development then it would probably be 
a daft thing to distribute generally. No? Surely  pulling out a 
current-version .sar is more generally useful?

>
> Temporary methods is an interesting use case.  That's not something 
> you can do with a .mcz.  What do you need it for?
Good question. One of the methods in VMMaker is #touch  which is sent 
as part of the noteCompilationOf:isMeta: override in InterpreterPlugin. 
Because this got filed out in advance of the implementation of #touch, 
I used a sar preamble to add a dummy #touch to Object, then removed it 
in the postscript. You may be able to suggest an alternative to this. I 
imagine filein ordering must have been an issue somewhere in your MC 
experience.

tim




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