How to improve Squeak

danielv at tx.technion.ac.il danielv at tx.technion.ac.il
Tue Jul 13 21:34:51 UTC 2004


Ok, go ahead. 

I propose the following first objectives: (specific to collections, but
this is generalizable)
Most of the collections code should be basic stuff that everyone and
everything uses. This means that it should not depend on optional stuff,
like UI frameworks. So:
1. Go through the collection class, and make a list of any that are not
such - stuff used or adapted to only a specific application. These
should be in another package, possibly to be extracted.
2. Go through the collection classes again, this time looking at
methods, and find any methods that refer to non-basic stuff, like
applications, or Morphic and so forth. Then you have to situations:
A. If these methods serve only  specific application, then they should
be moved to class extensions. If you don't know what to call the class
extensions at the moment (maybe the package these should belong to
doesn't exist yet), do it anyway. The assignment of these external
methods will be easy to refine later, the important part is to separate
them out. 
B. If they are general method that use other mechanisms that don't seem
completely basic (use sound system to beep, for example), then they
might require refactoring. Try to figure out what should be done about
them. Write up a message to the list about them.
3. When all the collections class categories depend only on stuff in
Kernel, themselves, or other very basic class categories, be happy,
you've achieved something significant. Make reasonable changesets and
submit.

And please, let people know how you're doing, so we can learn from one
anothers experience.

BTW, there are tools that do most of the easy parts, like looking for
external (PackageInfo externalReferences or something like it), the hard
work is deciding what is what.

You might think other goals are more worthy, then go ahead. But don't
just wait.

Daniel Vainsencher

"jhkeel" <jhkeel at facstaff.wisc.edu> wrote:
> Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 13:55:34 -0000
> From: "jhkeel" <jhkeel at facstaff.wisc.edu>
> Subject: Re: How to improve Squeak
> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
> envelope-to: danielv at localhost
> delivery-date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 19:15:13 +0300
> reply-to: The general-purpose Squeak developers list <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
> 
> --- In squeak at yahoogroups.com, lex at c... wrote:
> > If anything,
> > my suggestion would be for individuals to start volunteering as stewards
> > of the image(s);
> 
> Lex,
> 
> Many of us have volunteered.  I offered to steward "collections" for TFNR over 7 months 
> ago and nothing has come of it.  We are just waiting for someone to give us the go ahead 
> on that long delayed project.
> 
> Jack



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