[squeak-dev] Stuff

keith keith_hodges at yahoo.co.uk
Wed Dec 16 00:39:44 UTC 2009


> > So the question is, has ever been considered to simply build the  
> bridge between
> > communities and to use the PharoCore image as the base for Squeak?
>
> This wouldn't work for the same reasons that it wouldn't work to use a
> Squeak-trunk image as the basis for Pharo. You should propose that at
> some point just to see what kind of reaction you get ;-)
>
> Cheers,
>    - Andreas

Yes please propose it. That is an excellent idea. Lets use the  
PharoCore image as the base for future Squeak releases! It would work  
excellently, it might require some humility from Andreas. In my  
opinion it is the only sensible way forward.

Let me divulge a little secret here, the biggest reason that we kept  
the original 3.11 development always said to be about "process" and  
not about the actual release image, is that with a decent image  
building and testing process in place it would then have been possible  
to build and test a future squeak release pilot on top of some of the  
pharo-core packages. For us Pharo was simply a pilot project moving  
the core forward that we could borrow the best bits from it as  
appropriate. By adopting pharo in carefully integrated pieces we would  
perhaps of stood a chance of keeping the community together.

The annoying thing was that Pharo team seemed to be insisting on  
diverging far more than was necessary and consistently refused to  
adopt any shared values or code that would have made this approach  
easier, we really need as a starting point, shared code loading tools,  
package management tools, and shared testing tools at the very least.  
i.e. Installer, and MC1.5/6 were developed with this in mind, and so  
was SUnit-improved, but the Pharo team refused to touch either of  
these projects.

The more that the squeak-core image changes (i.e. in trunk) without  
tracking pharo's core packages the more diverse and impossible future  
integration will become. The old 3.11 effort was about having the  
tools to enable packages to be developed and tested in both Pharo and  
Squeak and all other forks, and then extending this to suggest common  
core packages as a way forward for everyone.

So now that our to-be carefully planned evolution of squeak-core,  
using pharo for inspiration, has been trashed by random hacking on  
trunk, adopting PharoCore as a base image is probably the viable way  
forward for this community to remain viable.

You already know that I don't see the squeak community as viable,  
since it eats its young.

Sooner or later the board or someone will realize this, they will get  
elected to the board, and all those of you who have been working hard  
on trunk will discover that all your contributions have been wasted.  
Never mind eh.

Keith
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