On 15 November 2013 02:54, Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 4:27 PM, Frank Shearar <frank.shearar at gmail.com> wrote:
>> We talk past each other every time we have this argument.
>
> Not every time -- I've learned a few things from y'all in this community.  :)
>
>> On 14 November 2013 20:47, Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I know module-heads like to say it's all about modularity and not size
>>> but I think it being about size is unavoidable.  (And, when I say
>>> "size" I'm talking only talking about disk and memory but also
>>> coherence which is a valuable thing).
>>>
>>> Because otherwise "so what" if FFI includes the constants and VMMaker
>>> depends on it solely for that portion of it?  How many methods making
>>> up FFI are we talking about?  There are plenty of _other_ methods in
>>> the image which are not being used by VMMaker, what about them?
>>>
>>> Acknowledged or not, at some point we're forced to assume a balance
>>> between number of extra methods and number of extra packages.  The
>>> hand-made-micro-packages approach puts these two metrics at inverse of
>>> each other, trading domain complexity for package complexity.
>>
>> We can argue about the granularity of the packages. I don't really
>> care about that. I argue about small packages in the base image only
>> because you cannot break the cycles without distinguishing about the
>> parts.
>
> Yes, we're in agreement that should be a criteria for determining
> package boundaries / granularities.
>
>> Please, please show me that I'm wrong so that I stop tilting at
>> the tangle web of windmills. Just take System. That would be a good
>
> Ha, I knew it!  You ALWAYS pick "System" every time we have this argument.   :)

It's one of the most egregious offenders, so I'm bound to pick on it :)

>> start. Show me how System makes sense as a package. Because all I see
>> is a big fat mess of separate things that have no business being
>> together. Projects? Change notifications? UI? Serialisation?
>
> "big fat mess" and "no business being together" are size / coherency
> judgements.  Busted!  :)

I use a pejorative term here only because System's (probably) the
worst entangler we have. I want the Squeak base image to be like a
layer cake. If you draw the dependencies between packages, and Kernel
sits at the bottom, then all the dependency arrows point either
sideways (with no cycles) or downwards. System is like a giant
pineapple sitting in the middle of that cake. It cuts across these
various layers, because it provides high level functionality (no good
examples off the top of my head because I'm at work and don't have an
image open - Project maybe?), low level functionality (change
notification), and "support" stuff (which largely looks like a "useful
things that we don't know where else to put" bucket).

> The truth is, I'm pretty sure we've agreed about System for a while.
> If all dependency cycles could be removed, I wouldn't care so much
> about System being "big and fat" because I see it as the "Smalltalk
> programming system", but I think the cycles probably won't be able to
> be eliminated without breaking it up and so it's moot to disagree on
> System anyway.

Parts of System depending on other parts of System in a cyclic manner
("intra-package" cycles) don't matter. Unless you try to break up the
package, of course, in which case you can't load the parts without
weird preambles and non-MC-friendly things.

I understand why you see System as being "the Smalltalk programming
system". I'm trying to untangle what exactly "the Smalltalk
programming system" actually means, and how it's built. I suppose I'm
looking at the packages through a microscope?

> You had brought up a one-class package which is what got this going
> this time..  :)

Yes, I did kinda deliberately do that, didn't I? :)

>>> This is why want Spoon to make micro-packaging less important.  Let
>>> the machine imprint a truly "optimal", application-specific, image
>>> that no amount of human-wrangling could ever come close.
>>
>> Shrinking is useless. You have no idea what you deploy. I _do not
>
> Dabble DB who wanted to run hundreds of images.  I also have cases
> where I need to run many images.  For that, shrinking is not useless.

By "useless" I mean "you have no idea what makes up a running process,
except by actually inspecting that process."

> The idea of Spoon is to deploy only one single "fat" image (with
> everything you know you need and more) from which as many minimal
> images can imprint from.  Since they only download methods they need,
> as they get called, memory usage is optimized.

Well. That inflate-as-needed approache requires you have a persistent,
reliable network connection between the deployed artifact and some
server somewhere. That's pretty much exactly the opposite of what I
consider sane deployment practice. I know I'm taking a really strong
stance here, and I apologise if I end up sounding harsh. (I can
sort've half-see a possible use case where the "single fat image" is
on the same machine as the mini images... in which case I'd rather see
the mini images constructed explicitly.)

In particular, the kind of thing that I'd like to see is an automated
and explicit build process that assembles some binary artifact. That
goes into CI, which throws stones at it. If that binary artifact
passes muster, it's turned into a Debian package (replace with
suitable replacement concept for your platform) with a hard version.
That package is then deployed to the target machine, and in prod you
know _exactly_ what your server's running. (An alternative approach
would be to use Docker, in which case you assemble and test a "virtual
machine lite" that you can just start running on your target machine.)

The first step here is actually being able to assemble that artifact,
and that comes down to a ConfigurationOf/Installer script that takes a
well-known base image and builds it up to whatever you need.

Now my obsession is applying this same process to the base image itself.

>> care_ about this theoretically minimal image, because otherwise I'd
>> just copy with Guille Polito's doing, and building up a whole new
>> object space starting with nil. _That_ is minimal.
>
> I'm not aware of his work..

This looks like a good starting point:
http://playingwithobjects.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/bootstrap-revival-the-basics/

>> I've been rolling out clearly versioned code, with well-understood
>> dependencies, for years now in every language I know except for the
>> one I love the most. And in every one of these languages (C#, Ruby,
>> Java, Scala) I have had _no_ serious pain in managing dependencies.
>> You define your immediate dependencies, and you're _done_.
>
> Yes, we seem to be getting there.

We are, slowly.

frank