Good question. Why a thing like Tonel, instead of just Smalltalk?
The short answer is that Smalltalk doesn't have syntax for anything 
larger than a method.

Filetree creates one file per method, so each file can be just 
Smalltalk. Filetree doesn't work well for large bodies of code -- 
operating systems tend to allocate a minimum of 4K to each file. Since 
most methods are *much* shorter than 4K, most of the space is unused. If 
you have a million methods (and some of my customers *do* have a million 
methods) the space requirements are prohibitive. The answer is to put 
more than one method into most files.

When you start to pack more than one method into the same file, you need 
some kind of syntax beyond Smalltalk to tell you where each method 
begins and ends, and other meta-information like class definitions and 
whether a method is a class method or an instance method and what 
category it belongs in is also needed. Smalltalk doesn't have syntax for 
that.

Tonel tries to keep the methods themselves as much pure Smalltalk and as 
readable as possible. The extra syntax is needed for the things outside 
the methods.

Note that Tonel is *not* chunk format. Chunk format dates back to 
Smalltalk-80, and is not part of Tonel. No '!!' in Tonel files. :-)
Chunk format did exist for a similar reason, though, that some kind of 
syntax beyond Smalltalk is needed if you want to put more than one 
method in a file. Chunk format  was imperative for the things outside of 
methods (things like class definitions are essentially do-its). This has 
led to serious awkwardness over the years, so Tonel is entirely declarative.

Hope that helps,
-Martin

On 8/26/20 5:04 PM, Kjell Godo wrote:
> i realize that you want to keep the ball rolling and all
> and not waste the previous efforts
> but why make a special Tonel syntax ?
> why not just use Smalltalk and String literals Number literals etc
> then it will be easy to change
> and isn’t this whole chunk format
> that shows up in Package Files
> an artifact of the limited hardware of yor
> or i can’t tell why they used it instead of just using Smalltalk
> i can’t see why you wouldn’t just use Smalltalk instead of these ! ! 
> bang things
> and all     are there some C style hard limits that can run you afoul ?
> no there are not
> but this is not helping to keep the ball rolling no
>
> On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 13:37 Martin McClure <martin at hand2mouse.com 
> <mailto:martin at hand2mouse.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Jakob,
>
>     Thanks for your interest. I'll send you the draft under separate
>     cover.
>     Putting it on GitHub is probably the best option -- I'll try to
>     get that
>     set up within the next couple of days, and announce it on the list
>     when
>     I do.
>
>     Regards,
>     -Martin
>
>     On 8/26/20 1:04 PM, Jakob Reschke wrote:
>     > Hello Martin,
>     >
>     > While I probably won't be able to provide comprehensive feedback or
>     > even read the whole text in the near future, I would certainly be
>     > interested to have a look.
>     >
>     > What is the licensing status of the draft and future proposed
>     > standard? If it is in some plain text/markup format, is it
>     possible to
>     > upload the draft to a public GitHub repository? Or something similar
>     > that allows for commenting on changes. On GitHub one can only
>     comment
>     > on diffs, but the initial commit will add all the lines, so one
>     could
>     > still comment on all of the text. Also people could provide
>     suggested
>     > changes via pull requests.
>     >
>     > Kind regards,
>     > Jakob
>     >
>     > Am Mi., 26. Aug. 2020 um 21:20 Uhr schrieb Martin McClure
>     > <martin at hand2mouse.com <mailto:martin at hand2mouse.com>>:
>     >> Hi all,
>     >>
>     >> Dale let me know this morning that Tonel was being discussed on
>     >> Squeak-dev.  I beg your pardon for arriving late.
>     >>
>     >> As Dale said, I'm the minder of the Tonel 1.0 standard, which is
>     >> currently in draft, with initial feedback from some of the
>     folks who
>     >> have implemented or are interested in implementing Tonel for their
>     >> Smalltalk dialect.
>     >>
>     >> I'm interested in getting feedback from *all* dialects who are
>     >> interested in using Tonel. I hope that the Squeak community will
>     >> participate.
>     >>
>     >> Tonel started as a collaboration between Pharo (primarily Esteban
>     >> Lorenzano) and GemTalk (primarily me), but the intent has
>     always been to
>     >> have a format that can be used in common between *all* dialects of
>     >> Smalltalk. The fundamental shape of Tonel is probably not going to
>     >> change at this point, but feedback so far is likely to result
>     in some
>     >> changes to the draft standard.
>     >>
>     >> Note that Tonel as currently implemented by Pharo is a bit
>     different
>     >> from standard Tonel. Pharo has agreed to make several changes
>     to the
>     >> format to standardize it. I'm not sure what the status of those
>     changes
>     >> within the Pharo project. The GemStone implementation is closer
>     to the
>     >> standard, though not fully there yet.
>     >>
>     >> I encourage the Squeak community to consider whether coding to the
>     >> standard early on might be a desirable direction. As Dale
>     explained, the
>     >> standard does allow for dialect-specific properties, so adding
>     >> timestamps probably doesn't require any changes to the spec.
>     >>
>     >> I'd like it If a few folks from the community would volunteer
>     to give
>     >> the spec a careful read-through and comment. It's a bit of a
>     read (and
>     >> was quite a bit of effort to write!) so I won't post the draft
>     on the
>     >> list, but it's available by request, and I need to figure out a
>     place to
>     >> make it readily available.
>     >>
>     >> Regards,
>     >> -Martin
>     >>
>     >>
>     >> On 8/26/20 9:41 AM, Dale Henrichs wrote:
>     >>> Eliot,
>     >>>
>     >>> When you repost, could you make sure that you include a
>     description of
>     >>> where the time stamps are stashed ... I'm assuming that you
>     are adding
>     >>> it to the method properties (where the category is stashed) as
>     I think
>     >>> that this is the right place, but it's always best not to guess:)
>     >>>
>     >>> The current crop of Tonel readers/writers do not necessarily
>     do a good
>     >>> job of preserving, foreign data (IIRC, the convention is to add a
>     >>> platform prefix to the property name, which is the same convention
>     >>> used for class properties ... at GemStone we add a leading
>     `gs_` to
>     >>> our property names), so until we can get all of the different
>     Tonel
>     >>> readers/writers to preserve foreign properties (package, class and
>     >>> method) it will continue to be dicey business for preserving
>     foreign
>     >>> properties in cross platform projects ...
>     >>>
>     >>> Monticello does not explicitly preserve foreign properties as the
>     >>> definitions get created from the native objects, so it takes some
>     >>> additional work to arrange to preserve foreign properties for
>     >>> packages, classes, and methods in the objects themselves. So it is
>     >>> worth considering what you will do with preserving foreign
>     properties
>     >>> from other platforms.
>     >>>
>     >>> FWIW, I intend to support the preservation of foreign
>     properties in
>     >>> Rowan (read that as "I haven't done that yet":)
>     >>>
>     >>> Finally, Martin McClure has started working on a spec for the next
>     >>> generation Tonel format ... to add a few missing pieces and
>     tweak the
>     >>> format to make it possible to continue to evolve the Tonel
>     format into
>     >>> the future in a somewhat sane way. If there are folks here in the
>     >>> Squeak community who would like to review, comment and
>     participate in
>     >>> the creation of the next generation format, send me (or
>     Martin) mail
>     >>> and we'll get you added to the mailing list.
>     >>>
>     >>> Dale
>     >>>
>     >>> On 8/26/20 7:15 AM, Eliot Miranda wrote:
>     >>>> Jakob,
>     >>>>
>     >>>>> On Aug 26, 2020, at 2:45 AM, Jakob Reschke
>     <forums.jakob at resfarm.de <mailto:forums.jakob at resfarm.de>>
>     >>>>> wrote:
>     >>>>>
>     >>>>> Hi Eliot,
>     >>>>>
>     >>>>>> Am Mi., 26. Aug. 2020 um 11:20 Uhr schrieb Eliot Miranda
>     >>>>>> <eliot.miranda at gmail.com <mailto:eliot.miranda at gmail.com>>:
>     >>>>>>
>     >>>>>> If we go with Tonel then we must change it to support method
>     >>>>>> timestamps.  I have a change set that does this (it is a
>     trivial
>     >>>>>> change).  And my changes are controlled by a class variable
>     so that
>     >>>>>> the same code can produce Pharo format or a slightly modified
>     >>>>>> format that includes method timestamps.
>     >>>>>>
>     >>>>>> What I don’t understand is why Esteban Lorenzano refuses to
>     accept
>     >>>>>> my changes and allow Tonel to be used either with or
>     without method
>     >>>>>> timestamps.
>     >>>>>>
>     >>>>> Method timestamps produce merge conflicts inevitably.
>     >>>> a) only when they change, and they change only when methods
>     change
>     >>>> b) inadvertent method timestamp changes can be undone
>     automatically
>     >>>> c) Squeak uses method timestamps; we have lots of tools that use
>     >>>> them. Dropping them just so that we can use Tonel is an
>     example of
>     >>>> the tail wagging the dog. The Tonel interface must instead be
>     made to
>     >>>> function with method timestamps
>     >>>>
>     >>>> If there is a decision not to support method timestamps then
>     I will
>     >>>> not support the work. This is a make or break issue for me.
>     >>>>
>     >>>>> Can you re-post
>     >>>>> your changeset here?
>     >>>> I’ll post it later today (reading email in bed right now).
>     >>>>
>     >>>>> https://github.com/squeak-smalltalk/squeak-tonel/issues
>     >>>> OK
>     >>>>
>     >>>>> Then we could
>     >>>>> discuss whether to include it at least in the Squeak
>     version. As we
>     >>>>> have heard from Mariano some time ago, VA Smalltalk also
>     puts its
>     >>>>> dialect-specific metadata in the Tonel format, so Squeak
>     would not be
>     >>>>> the first to do so.
>     >>>> Good.
>     >>>>
>     >>>>> Kind regards,
>     >>>>> Jakob
>     >>
>
>
>

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