On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 18:26:47 -0300, Hernan Tylim <htylim at yahoo.com.ar> wrote:
> Hi Goran,
> 
>         The problem with using the SM Cache for this "image building scripts"
> is that you need to keep a unique sm/ folder for all your images, which
> is not always desirable or even possible (think in a PC at home, and a
> PC at work for example).

First of all, the sm cache is not much use in my targeted application
of the SqueakInstaller.  In the usual case I am using SqueakInstaller
on *brand new* images.  So if you cache it or not, my sm is *always*
squeaky clean (no pun intended) and not much use.
 
>         What I like of the SAR approach is that it is very self-sufficient. You
> just bundle everything you need in the sar and you execute it in any
> image you want.

Second of all, I think the SAR approach interests me in certain
applications, but I think caching (either in SARs or in the SM cache)
is purely an optimization and I am less focused on optimizations at
the present moment.

One motivation to cache is to improve performance.  I am not so
worried about the 5 minutes it takes me to setup my new image as it
stands now.  That is much more performant than doing it by hand.  The
other reason to cache is to have redundancy of packages.

Frankly, I think it would benefit the community at large to have more
redundant SM servers and SqueakSource servers (and anywhere else we
decide to squirrel away our code).

So I am not saying I am not interested in caching on the client, but I
think the utility is marginal for my targeted application.  Plus,
there is a real downside to caching that hasn't been mentioned!  Stale
caches!  I happen to like the ability of SqueakInstaller to grab the
latest versions of MCZ packages and install them.  I don't always want
to work it that way, but sometimes I really do -- and caching in SM or
SARs gets in my way in these cases.

Now, if I could setup some sort of SM caching server and/or
SqueakSource caching server in my organization, that would be quite
handy, but certainly outside the scope of SqueakInstaller.

Regards,

John
-- 
If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it. --
Albert Einstein