[squeak-dev] Packages, Packages, Packages

Colin Putney cputney at wiresong.ca
Sun Dec 13 02:56:35 UTC 2009





On 2009-12-12, at 10:02 AM, Chris Cunnington <smalltalktelevision at gmail.com> wrote:

> The intent of what you created is irrelevant. How people use the tool shows its actual value to the community. If that's not how you envisioned it, then that doesn't matter. If I want to use a butter knife as a screwdriver to fix the toaster, and it works, then that's all that matters.

Sure, you can do whatever you want with my work! That's why I release it under the MIT license, so others can come up with novel uses for it. But this isn't using a butter knife to tighten a screw, it's using a sponge to tighten a screw. If you somehow manage to get the screw tightened, it's not thanks to the sponge. 

Monticello doesn't manage packages. It loads packages, yes. But package *management* requires more than that. The folks who are supposedly using Monticello to manage packages are in fact managing them by hand, and using MC to load them. That's fine, a package management system may well use MC to do the actual loading of packages. But let's not confusing loading with management.

If you look at SqueakMap and Package Universes, they *do* provide package management. SqueakMaps lacks dependency metadata, and Package Universes lacks a web interface. They may in adequate for the task at hand, but they're at least attempts to solve the problem facing us. 

Colin


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