Klaus D. Witzel wrote:
> On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 08:42:09 +0200, Peace Jerome wrote:
> ...
>> The important thing is to be able to find (in one
>> image or another ) the versions that lead up to the
>> current one. And to get the most information out of
>> them as to what changed; by whom; and to infer for
>> what purpose.
> 
> I doubt that this can be achieved, at least not with the current tools 
> (and .image).

There may be. Here is a thought that I had for a long time now: Consider 
that the change history is simply one logical huge file of change 
records where the .sources and .changes are mere portions of the full 
"Squeak source file" that logs all the changes that were ever done as 
the system evolved to your version.

Also consider that if we can describe the name of a *previous* changes 
(sources) file and if we can describe where in that changes file the 
previous change record for some code lives, then you could have a 
situation where -in the condensed changes file of SqueakX.Y.changes- you 
will find that the "previous version" of some method is to be found in 
"SqueakX.Y-k.changes". In which case, merely by dropping the appropriate 
changes file alongside your install you'd have the ability to browse 
those previous versions - going back all the way to Squeak1.0 if you 
have all those "chunks of the logical sources of Squeak" (represented by 
the .changes files).

The (obvious) point being here that if we can keep the information where 
previous versions ought to be located, it would be trivial to do a 
condense changes for each new version - if you want history, install the 
previous versions of Squeak alongside the current one and you got it.

[Disclaimer: The above obviously doesn't deal with packages etc. where 
due to the current snapshot-nature of Monticello history information is 
not preserved. In other words: This doesn't work for package history.].

Cheers,
   - Andreas