Team proposal: Morphic Splitters

Lynn Hales lhales at earthlink.net
Wed Feb 23 16:51:46 UTC 2005


Hello Cees and the Morphic Splitters,  I agreed silently and now in
writing.  I have one big request.  We absolutely need accurate and
up to date documentation.  Part of the challenge of Squeak is the
underlying practice that the way to learn Squeak is through trying to
make it work or do something with it from studying the classes and
their methods.  This is wrong and is a huge barrier.  Cookbooks and how to use tutorials are
really needed to take Squeak to a new level of use in mainstream
business.  Reviewing all of the old morphic stuff on the web really
does not work well.  Regards, Lynn

Wednesday, February 23, 2005, 4:11:33 AM, you wrote:

CdG> Hi All,

CdG> After the deafening silence on our plans, I take it you all agree with it
CdG> but are just to shy to speak up in public ;)

CdG> Anyway, here's a team proposal. I'm Team Leader Ad Interim - if someone
CdG> else wants the job, there's a good chance I'll step down because I'll be
CdG> busy enough as it is.

CdG> Goal: split up Morphic into 'Mini Morphic' and 'Rest Of Morphic'

CdG> Timeline: June/July

CdG> Acknowledgements: Avi and Dan, I think.

CdG> Details:

CdG> Morphic has grown a bit big and ugly. This has had various reasons, all
CdG> probably very good design decisions at the time they were made, but it's
CdG> about time to clean up this legacy.

CdG> A very big part of Morphic is 'just' there to support eToys (let me stress
CdG> that we squeak-dev'ers are a minority user group!). We're lugging it with
CdG> us, trying to keep it in shape, but we hardly use it. Also, because
CdG> Morphic+eToys has grown such a big thing it is nigh impossible to clean it
CdG> up. So, the immediate plan is to untangle this Gordian Knot - we have one
CdG> handicap that Alexander didn't have: swords are not allowed ;)

CdG> The MINIMAL deliverable of this project is:
CdG> - CoreMorphic package. World/project support + the UI bits for ToolBuilder
CdG> to operate.
CdG> - FatMorphic package. All the rest of it.
CdG> - eToys package.
CdG> These packages should all be loadable/unloadable on demand. We'd like
CdG> Squeak to become UI-neutral, so it must become simple to swap Morphic for
CdG> MVC or vice versa (or for Tweak, wxSqueak, ...).

CdG> CONDITIONS:
CdG> - The community accepts that if this team is instated AND delivers at
CdG> least the minimal deliverables, these deliverables will become part of the
CdG> next release of Squeak after delivery.

CdG> OPTIONAL deliverables:
CdG> - While we're at it, make MVC a loadable/unloadable package;
CdG> - Refactoring. Cutting out dead wood from especially FatMorphic that's not
CdG> needed;
CdG> - Further splitups of FatMorphic, if it turns out to be logical.

CdG> DEPENDENCIES:
CdG> - We use ToolBuilder to define what CoreMorphic is. I.e., whatever
CdG> ToolBuilder needs, lands in CoreMorphic. Whatever ToolBuilder does not
CdG> need, does not land into CoreMorphic. The project assumes that ToolBuilder
CdG> will be in the image that will be used to release the Team's deliverables.

CdG> NON-DEPENDENCIES:
CdG> - We are not going to assume that any output from any package/modules team
CdG> is ready in time. So straight PackageInfo is our basis.

CdG> I repeat that a conditio sine qua non for this project is that eToys
CdG> becomes loadable/unloadable and keeps working. So it's not a matter, as
CdG> the 'strippers' do, of just cutting off the excess fat; it needs to be
CdG> carefully trimmed of and kept apart. Which makes it a job not much more
CdG> glorious than Ken's 'Janitors' Team ;). After we've delivered, the idea is
CdG> to have people sign up for maintenance of these various packages, where my
CdG> expectation is that the Squeaklanders will start taking care of the eToys
CdG> package.

CdG> Joining:

CdG> Announce here on the list or through private mail to me. When no
CdG> objections from the community arise and there are enough people that join
CdG> up, I'll ask my colleague coordinators to declare it as a Team and setup
CdG> list+swiki+MC storage. If you want to become the Team leader for this,
CdG> please drop me a mail with motivation etcetera.

CdG> Regards,

CdG> Cees






-- 
Best regards,
 Lynn                            mailto:lhales at earthlink.net




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