[squeak-dev] I would like to run for the Squeak Oversight Board

Jeff Gonis jeff.gonis at gmail.com
Fri Feb 7 18:56:15 UTC 2014


Hi Folks,

I would like to announce my candidacy for the Squeak Oversight Board. I
have been interested in Squeak and have been using it for a several years
now, ever since I first stumbled onto Squeak By Example, worked my way
through some initial confusion with the interface, and subsequently had a
moment of enlightenment.  Why isn't all software developed in this way?

Although I have used Squeak for several years now, I have realized that I
need to do more to give back to it. I have made some efforts, working a bit
on the Squeak-CI setup last year, and also working to get some performance
testing set up on the CI server. I have also made a couple of very minor
code contributions to the trunk over the past few years.

But the beauty of Open Source is that it gives back as much as you put in,
and if you want it to get better you've got to roll up your sleeves and dig
in. Helping with code is always great but I would also like to contribute
my time to the community, and helping with the Oversight Board seems like a
great way to do so.

My main vision for Squeak is that it continues to become modularized and
"untangled" via the great work that Frank and others are doing. This sort
of work benefits the system as a whole, besides the goal of building up
from a minimal image.

I would also like to see Squeak become better documented, both on the wiki
and in the image, possibly by picking a class each week and soliciting
feedback on how best to document it.

I would like to start building up the number of "community supported
packages" that exist on Squeak map, by going back into the existing
catalog, grabbing high value packages, doing some work to get them up to
snuff on current images and then having that work be validated on the CI
server.

Finally, the graphical directness and malleability of Squeak has always
been the most appealing thing about it to me and I would like to see Squeak
move forward in that realm. I think that Juan has done great work with
morphic, improving morph layout and implementing per-morph coordinates and
I would like to see some of that work brought into our image. I also think
that Pharo has done great work bringing the actual graphical capabilities
of Smalltalk forward via Athens and so I would like to see Athens working
in Squeak too, so that we can all access beautiful and fast anti-aliased
graphics and text rendering.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this. Whether or not I get to
represent the community on the Oversight Board, I look forward to a great
year for Squeak, and more great work from everyone involved in this
community.

Sincerely,
Jeff
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