On Monday, July 26, 2004, at 02:20 PM, Steven Riggins wrote:

> Hello folks!
>
> We've begun work on TK4 in Tweak.  One of the issues that has come up 
> is the internationalization work that Michael and Yoshiki are working 
> on.
>
> Since TK4 depends on this work, I'd like to get a sense of the 3.8 
> status.  I've seen notes from as far back as January, but I don't 
> think 3.8 is done yet.

There was originally talk (early this year) of getting the 
internationalization work in 3.7, but the i18n changes were major 
enough that Michael & Yoshiki needed a stable point at which to add the 
changes, instead of the constantly shifting base of 3.7alpha.  So 
they're being added now as the first item in 3.8alpha, without having 
to have any other changes go in first.

3.8 is not done yet, it only recently started.

> I'd like to see 3.8 nailed down to just these changes and finished.

Well, 3.8 was tentatively planned to be a shorter/smaller release 
(coordinated with the 64-bit 4.0 release) so something like this 
*might* work out.  But we need to hear from the 64-bit folks on this.

(disclaimer: I'm just now looking up "TK4" on Google, although I'm 
familiar with Tweak & Croquet)

> As more and more people learn about Squeak/Tweak and more projects 
> start to rely on the wonderful work you do, we're going to need more 
> stable versions than less stable versions, and shorter development 
> cycles for each iteration.

Unfortunately these last two (more stability and shorter development 
cycles) are in conflict with each other.  Well, you can decrease the 
overall amount of change in Squeak and then I guess you could get both 
of those things.  Or, try to improve the development process in general 
(e.g. have the equivalent of some direct "committers"), which we're 
working on, but that's not easy.

Anyway, 3.7 is taking about 9 months instead of the originally planned 
6 months, so I agree that is too long.  But getting the releases 
significantly faster than every 6 months... ain't gonna happen anytime 
soon.  It would require someone else taking over the release process 
from me (for starters), and doing a lot of work on the process...

- Doug