On Wed, Apr 09, 2014 at 08:23:43AM -0300, Edgar J. De Cleene wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 4/8/14, 11:52 PM, "tim Rowledge" <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:
> 
> > While looking around in a 4.5 image to prepare to move my code into the
> > ?official? image I idly noodled around some of the docking bar menus.
> > 
> > I noticed that the Apps->Services Browser opened something that appears to
> > actually be the PreferencesBrowser, and that after taking a look at the
> > Services classes I have no idea what the entire package is supposed to do nor
> > whether it is used much. Is it actually useful?
> > 
> > I noticed that Apps->Universe Browser doesn?t do anything fun because it can?t
> > load any data from the now non-existent universes.dnsalias.net And there are
> > two entries (Apps->Package Universe Browser & Apps->Universe Browser) that
> > open what looks to be identical browsers. IIRC we are planning to remove this
> > stuff anyway, so perhaps it doesn?t matter too much.
> > 
> > I noticed that Apps->SqueakMap Catalog & Categories sort-of open but after
> > supposedly updating the contents hardly any of the packages you can see via a
> > plain web browser appear in the lists. For example, in the development tools
> > section I see only LispKit & Prolog and not the perhaps 100 other packages.
> > 
> > And since one of the things I was originally intending to check on was space
> > usage, I?m amazed to see 3Mb of strings (that?s about War and Peace), 9000
> > MCVersionInfo instances (and similar numbers of MCVersionName + DateAndTime,
> > and Date, and Time). Wow. We?re holding on to too much stuff somewhere...
> > 
> > tim
> 
> From 3.10 times I saying we should rip Universes, SqueakMap ,ScriptLoader,
> etc and stick only to Monticello as a way to load any into the .image.
> 
> As Pharo and Cuis do today.
> 
> Specially look Cuis GitHub package way, it's where we should go in 4.6 and
> beyond.
> 
> Not sure about Services, but think Andreas talk about rip this also.
> 
> Edgar
> 

SqueakMap uses Monticello to load packages, so that is not a problem. It
also allows other loaders to be used, which may be important for older
packages.

The Cuis approach is interesting, but we do not need *more* ways to find
loadable packages. I have tried the Cuis approach (I put OSProcess into
a package for Cuis). It is a good idea with some advantages, but it would
not be helpful as a "Squeak map catalog" because it relies on active package
maintainers who are participating in the development process.

Pharo looks like a mess to me. Everything is declared to work with some
version of stuff that you don't have. Let's not go there.

The only problem I have with SqueakMap is that for packages like
TwosComplement or PunchedCards on SqueakMap, which run on more or less
any version of Squeak, I am expected to remember to update those packages
on SqueakMap every time someone releases a new Squeak version. This is
annoying and eventually I might run out of patience and forget to do it.

Dave