[squeak-dev] SM, scripts, and application names

Chris Cunnington smalltalktelevision at gmail.com
Thu Mar 8 20:03:08 UTC 2012


I'm posting this here to think out loud.

Not so long ago I built a widget called Scripy which was for using 
Installer scripts to load things. I pulled that project down, as I've 
learned what I needed from it. At the time I got some push back from 
Chris M. and I couldn't understand why. Now I understand. He did that 
same job a year before and did it much better. Except for one regard. 
Chris M. wrote SMReleaseBrowser, so a person could go to the SqueakMap 
GUI and create a release. And the user could also add an Installer script.

The code he wrote is better than I can write. It's broken at the moment, 
but I'll get under it to see how it works. The problem is that although 
it was great code, it was an utter and total communications failure. 
Grand mal. I know of only one person who knew it existed and they've 
never used it.

But it is good code, and I'd like to build on it. Packages need to be 
abstracted over with Installer script and stored on the server in a 
user's downloads directory.

This is a good idea. I have one to add: applications need names. The 
name of an package is not sufficient to be the name of an app. Say I 
want to load Tweak. I should be able to go to a list and choose ... 
Tweak. Not guess from a bunch of package names. So I figure I'll add 
that to SM -- application names. The packages will be hidden. Advanced 
users will be able to get a pane of packages to load additions 
specifically.

Click KomHttpServer now and you had better know you need DynamicBindings 
and KomServices. With an application name in a list saying 
KomHttpServer, the button should cue the Installer script so that 
DynamicBindings and KomServices are loaded automatically. The 
dependencies are the responsibility of the developer doing the release. 
If people want to detail further, then they could go to a second tier 
pane that lists individual packages.

The last thing I figure, and here is where Chris M. and I differ, is 
that releases should not be allowed to be created from the image. Only 
from the web site. I see SqueakMap where production is handled at the 
website. Consumption from the image.

This allows for the creation of a GUI which displays application names 
in a list and has no more than three buttons.

Thanks,
Chris


More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list