Hi--

     Trygve writes:

> The idea of "burn the disk packs" was a fundamental mistake; it
> doesn't take into account that the value of a release image is
> minuscule compared to the value added by user/programmers. The idea of
> a personal computer cannot be reconciled with the idea of throwing
> everything away every few years. What about my address book, my diary,
> the useful program I wrote two years ago, the program I'm working on
> now. (My programs are part of my personal data)

     Well, I wasn't asking anyone to throw anything away. I was asking
for planning. Continuity is actually very important to me. Indeed, if it
weren't, I wouldn't have taken the tactic of changing Squeak into what I
want; I would have made something completely new. I'm also putting a lot
of work into paths from current Squeak to Spoon (e.g., adapting my VM
and remote browsing changes to Squeak 3.9).

> I am afraid you expect too much from the community.

     It seems so.

> I am working on my own pet project(s). Like everyone else, I am trying
> to avoid committing /error 33: Predicating one research effort upon
> the success of another.
> (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/E/error-33.html)

     Ah, but I think we take that too far and commit error 34 (insisting
upon small incremental changes *at all times*) and error 35 (being
unwilling to imagine a way to achieve larger changes in the future). I
think these are much worse than error 33, and as an exquisite case in
point I present the very origin of that term, Xerox PARC. :)

> Still, I do want to try SPOON. But I got wary when I followed the
> installation directions and immediately crashed. Perhaps the project
> hasn't got as far as I expected.

     It is indeed alpha software currently, as marked. Still, I hadn't
thought that would keep people from considering possibilities.

     Juan writes:

> ...you are a member of the Board. Doesn't this help you understand
> better the future of Squeak?

     Well, it certainly puts me in closer contact with more people; I
have more discussions about the future of Squeak than I might otherwise.
But as far as my own opinions go, so far it seems that being on the
board has just been a conflict of interest. (Of course there's still a
lot of other good work to do, like sorting out the license situation and
our legal viability). I thought about this a lot before the elections in
2006 (I ended up deciding not to run unless I was nominated).

> Doesn't this allow you to decide about it?

     I certainly have a voice, but I (should be) just one of seven
people. And even when the seven of us are in agreement, if the rest of
the community doesn't want to go along, things won't work. There will
just be a new set of seven after the next election, the cat-herding
continuing as before. The election can be taken as a mandate, I suppose,
but the will of this community is so fluid that I'm not sure how long
one can point to that for authority. :)

     Things really only worked before when there was an unquestioned
dictatorial entity (Kay's team), and that depended on funding and the
primacy of their original work. I'm not saying that's the only viable
way to go, but it's worth remembering. One could simply decide to turn
the community into another dictatorship, but I would only feel
comfortable with that (as either leader or follower) if it were decided
by community consensus (in perhaps its last democratic act ;).

> If you are in trouble knowing about the future of Spoon and Squeak,
> what's left to people like me with Morphic 3?

     The phrase "in the same boat" comes to mind. :)


     Thanks, you two, and Laurence, and those who wrote in private, for
the kind words!

-C

-- 
Craig Latta
improvisational musical informaticist
www.netjam.org
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]