On 17.03.2010, at 17:12, Chris Cunnington wrote:
> Hi Randal, 
> 
> I'm going to disagree with you pretty hard about this. 
> 
> I think what you're proposing sounds tedious beyond words. And I don't think it's what Squeak's about. Databases are tedious. Operating systems are tedious. Cincom and Gemstone obsess about databases and tedious minuta, because that's their job. I spent several days reading CentOS archives and I thought I would pass out, it was so dull. 
> 
> Squeak is not dull. It's about multimedia, 3D worlds, web development, desktop applications, etc. Squeak should always be first in space doing wild things. Whatever VPRI has up its sleeve we should look at and play with. Squeak is about programming for its own sake not somebody else's. One of the things that Pharo will have to contend with is sounding reasonable to other people. If they want to be appealing to business, they will have to listen to lots of stupidity from people who have databases and operating systems for brains. I think that's going to be a pretty unpleasant part of their adventure. That's not what Squeak's about. 
> 
> Jesse has some crazy idea about object memory? I say great. Fulmer wants to bring Cobalt to the Trunk? I say that's what we're all about. VPRI has some craziness called Ometa? Bring it on. 
> 
> Squeak is not now, nor should it ever be, about boring, reasonable plans. This is where the cool stuff happens. Dynabooks to the third world? Right on. If it weren't for the oddness of continuations, Seaside would be dull as dishwater. Andreas wants to throw generators into the Trunk? Are they nifty? Yes they are; so let's do it. 
> 
> Databases are for peasants. We are unique and occupy a unique position. Let's embrace that. Stop trying to turn us into shadows of Gemstone, Cimcom, or other merchants of tedium. If Kent Beck isn't happy with Squeak, I don't see it as our job to cater.
> 
> There is nothing else on earth like us and what we do. 
> Squeak is a never ending game of capture the flag.
> 
> Chris 

Uh oh. What did Randal do to deserve this retaliation? ;) 

He's proposing a feature. A useful one in my mind. It's general enough to not be only useful for databases, but for multi-media apps too.

And even if it *was* only for databases it wouldn't hurt to support it in Squeak. It takes nothing away from the fun.

Also, I hope that we will be able to share at least the VM with all the Squeak-based projects. So far that has worked fine. So if there was a project that would like to see this feature in the VM I would support it for that reason alone, even if Squeak Trunk does not use it. In fact there are such features already.

- Bert -