about 3.9alpha

stéphane ducasse ducasse at iam.unibe.ch
Fri Jun 10 06:19:17 UTC 2005


Hi andreas

I was visiting mike last week and I really want to use the same  
setup. I took the mcconfiguration package and I'm trying to  
understand it
but time is flying. I think (in fact since ginsu and even before)  
that this is the way to go: decompose to control complexity.
This will be also the way to manage branches, distribution because of  
the granularity.

>> I would like to see how we can manage gradually the image via MC  
>> so  may be we will have several back and worth into the update  
>> streams. People
>>
> > willing to help are welcome.
>
> Actually, I think we've nailed this problem in Tweak by using the  
> right mixture of packages and updates. If you haven't looked at it,  
> here is how it works: In Tweak, *all* code is in packages[*].  
> Updates are exclusively used for in-image reshapes, e.g., when part  
> of the system has undergone significant changes that require manual  
> intervention. In order to synchronize these modifications with the  
> package versions that we expect, we typically post a configuration  
> map, e.g., a list of packages where we expect some specific version  
> to be present.
>
> When you update, we always consult the update stream first. This  
> will suck in any intermediate configurations and perform the  
> necessary in-image modifications. Once this is done, we merely  
> upgrade all packages in a well-defined order to their latest version.
>
> [*] The one exception from that rule being code that needs to  
> modify existing Squeak code which doesn't come in packages. Since  
> overrides are evil we leave these changes alone in the updates.  
> What we *should* be doing here (if Squeak were in packages) is to  
> maintain our own branches of the packages in question. As a matter  
> of fact I started looking into this issue lately - if you check out  
> http://source.impara.de/iSqueak.html you'll find a small change set  
> for reorganizing Squeak 3.8 (6662) so that *all* code is in  
> packages (look at the wiki page for reference).

Thanks for the pointer. I really want this to happen ;)

>
> Personally, I think this is the way to go

Me too. I think that the email archive can show that :)

> - we have used this for several months in Tweak and besides some  
> screwups that we're responsible for we definitely haven't found any  
> fundamental flaw in this setup.
>
> Cheers,
>   - Andreas
>
>




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