On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 21:44:24 +0100, stéphane ducasse  
<ducasse at iam.unibe.ch> wrote:
> Martin was not asking for information, he was saying that basically we  
> are researchers and that what we are proposing
> is idiot or has no value and I do not want to argue with people at this  
> level. Sorry!
>
I hear that a lot of you. Martin was just lining out a very sound set of  
rules *iff* you work under the assumption that Smalltalk/Squeak needs to  
be as stable as possible. I have never read that he found Traits idiotic,  
at best he finds them unnecessary and if I recall he was fishing for  
evidence to the contrary.

> You mix everything.

No, I don't. I just emulate Joe Average who loads up SqueakMap, sees  
Traits, thinks "hey that's this cool stuff from the Berne guys", but finds  
this comment.


> We always said that we would commit to produce high quality code and  
> environment and if this would not  be ready we will not push it. Should  
> I re-say again and again and again.

No, you need to say it only once. In the SqueakMap comments, for starters,  
where chances are higher that people will read it than in any posting on  
the mailing list.

> So you can see that my proposal for 3.9 is quite coherent.
>
Maybe from your point of view. But can't you understand that outsiders,  
who haven't got access to full Traits with a souped up OmniBrowser  
etcetera, nor to the original prototype, are quite skeptical? They have to  
put a lot of trust in you guys for what amounts to be the first major  
language chance in quite some time.

And don't understand me wrong - I like Traits. I want it to become usable  
for everyone, because I think it does solve some genuine problems. I'm  
just playing the devil's advocate here, attempting to clarify more  
skeptical viewpoints on Traits.

But - please let's drop this metadiscussion. It eats too much energy and  
distracts from the stuff that is really important. If you feel like  
answering my statements above, feel free to do so; I'll however will  
probably not respond anymore, because this is more important:

> Adrian posted call for feedback long time ago.

I'm beginning to get the feeling that general calls for feedback don't  
work in this community ;)

So one issue to solve is how to get more people looking at Traits, and  
hopefully working towards a releasable level.

> Adrian interfaced it with Monticello and the new version of OB
> because the class browser code is so bad.
>
The drawback is that this ties Traits' release schedule to OB's release  
schedule, not?

> He boostrapped the kernel but each time a new release of squeak is  
> coming and something change then he has to check again if the changes we  
> had to do on the kernel have to be redone.
>
That's of course a problem that will persist as long as Traits ain't "out  
there".

> We proposed to give a real definition to canUnderstand in presence of  
> abstract method but people having nothing
> to do with squeak started to shout.
>
Hmm... probably missed that one - do you have a pointer or at least  
approximate time period about this discussion?

> Apparently alan is found of traits so there is some hope.
>
Heh. Well, Alan is fond of Croquet as well, I assume, but that isn't going  
to make it land into 3.9 base ;)

Concluding, Stephane - I'm committed to getting Traits into 3.9, 4.0, or  
whatever. But not by forcing it through everyone's throat. There must be  
some time to be able to play with the stuff, some time to build up a real  
world code base with Traits, to have people look at kernel refactorings  
with Traits, etcetera. All the other good tools that are in the base image  
have had to go through the same testing and acceptance process: SqueakMap,  
Monticello, all were available and in use before they were made part of  
the base image. Traits *must* go through the same process, it's to big to  
just shove it in. So it's vital to get a production-level version out  
there ASAP so people can work with it. That's usually the best way to let  
people make up their minds.