[squeak-dev] [Squeak 4.0] MVC Controller context menu lock up bug

Bert Freudenberg bert at freudenbergs.de
Wed Mar 17 11:30:23 UTC 2010


On 17.03.2010, at 04:37, David T. Lewis wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 09:40:26PM -0400, Sam Adams wrote:
>> Yep, I've not been involved for a long time.
>> But I am willing to help keep MVC alive and well as Squeak moves forward.
>> Happy to learn the new process.  Where do I start?
>> Is there a master issue/bug list from the MVC side I can attack, or do I
>> need to discover them via use?
>> I can already see the class/instance/comment buttons in the MVC browser are
>> in need of repair.
>> I imagine there are many of the newer tools that have no support in MVC
>> either.  Priorities?
> 
> Sam,
> 
> Thanks for your interest. The Squeak community development process is
> described here:
> 
>  http://squeakboard.wordpress.com/category/development/
> 
> Progress over the last year or so has been rapid, and the evolving
> Squeak image is referred to as the "Squeak trunk", which is maintained
> using the Monticello version control system here:
> 
>  http://source.squeak.org/@vaeYlRCfuCGzQQS2/VUsLzpdo
> or:
>  http://source.squeak.org/trunk/
> 
> The official bug tracking system is a Mantis system at bugs.squeak.org.
> This has an issue category for "MVC", but is haphazardly updated and is
> not the best place to begin (but it is still important for reporting
> issues, posting fixes, and tracking issues to resolution).
> 
> The best place to start is with a recent snapshot of the trunk development
> image:
> 
>  ftp://ftp.squeak.org/trunk/Squeak3.11-9622-alpha.zip
> 
> This image opens in Morphic, but you can open an MVC project to be
> back in familiar, if not fully functional, territory. You will quickly
> discover some opportunities for improvement ;)
> 
> The traditional update stream (based on change sets) is replaced by
> an newer update stream wired in to the trunk repository. You will
> see a "Load Code Updates" button to trigger the update, or just
> evaluate "Utilities updateFromServer". This brings your image up
> to the latest trunk development. This is safe to do at any time;
> in the occasional cases where someone's update breaks the system,
> it is usually fixed within hours.
> 
> Overall, MVC has suffered some bit rot over the last few years.
> The things that I would judge to be highest priority concerns are:
> 
> 1) "self halt" hangs the system because of failure to open a debugger
> window. This may be related to changes in process scheduling that
> somehow were not updated to keep the controller loop working correctly,
> or it may be related to changes to debugger view construction. Whatever
> the cause, it is a catch-22 for MVC debugging, because you can't
> debug much of anything without a working debugger.
> 
> 2) Keystroke input processing is slow and erratic, particularly
> when running under a Unix VM. This is probably related to various
> changes to input event processing for which MVC has not been properly
> updated.
> 
> 3) ToolBuilder support. Construction of views for some of the basic
> tools is now done with ToolBuilder, which generalizes the construction
> of views under MVC and Morphic (and hopefully other frameworks). Some
> of the tool support for MVC may be incompletely implemented.
> 
> I would note also that work has been under way to partition Squeak
> into reloadable packages, such that (for example) you could unload
> all of MVC or all of Morphic to achieve a reduced image, and reload
> these packages as needed. It is currently possible to unload and
> reload all of MVC (hence achieving a Morphic-only environment), and
> it hopefully will be possible in the future to similarly unload
> and reload all of Morphic to obtain an MVC-only environment.
> 
> If you are able to address any problems with MVC in Squeak trunk,
> change sets posted to the squeak-dev list will be gratefully received.
> Posting to bug reports on Mantis is even better, and contributing
> directly to the Squeak trunk is best of all. But a change set is
> fine, and very welcome indeed.
> 
> Thanks,
> Dave


Very nice summary Dave!

I'd add that "contributing directly to the Squeak trunk" is easy - just publish your changed packages to the Inbox repo and announce here.

Looks like we need to update this wrt updating and inbox usage:
http://squeakboard.wordpress.com/category/development/
Or better even put something similar up on squeak.org. Takers? :)

- Bert -





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