[Squeakfoundation]Concrete SqF projects

[Paul Fernhout]

Andreas Raab wrote:
> I disagree with
> your trampoline metaphor because it's just not like that for any of the
> tasks that I've mentioned we would need a brilliant Smalltalk programmer
> with at least twenty years of experience who knows the guts of the Squeak
> garbage collector in and out. 

I agree the tasks you outlined could (and perhaps should) be done by
non-programmers (say a good technical writer).

The trampoline metaphor was more along the lines of saying how something
that is fine for one person to use (the browser, project, and changeset
model of Squeak) could behave in unexpected ways when multiple people
use it (leading to projects getting hurt, or rather, left behind or made
unloadable). 

To that extent, I think we are seeing something new with a large
community developing open source Smalltalk code in a big way with
Squeak. This is something that has never happened before (UIUC archives
http://st-www.cs.uiuc.edu/ excepted), but that means the old tools and
mindsets for individual Smalltalk productivity (where say licensing does
not mattter) may not be quite the right ones for community coding.
Basically, the success of Squeak on one level (empowering individuals)
has made a whole new set of issues appear on another level (empowering
groups). 

-Paul Fernhout
Kurtz-Fernhout Software 
=========================================================
Developers of custom software and educational simulations
Creators of the Garden with Insight(TM) garden simulator
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com