[Squeakfoundation]Ideas for 3.7

[Andreas Raab]

Hi,

Just one brief comment:
> - Decide whether the following release should be 3.8 or 4.0 (w/image
> format change), someone like Tim will need to coordinate this issue

I would VERY much encourage having "parallel" versions of VI3 and VI4 images
for a couple of releases. Why? People running "mission critical stuff" in
Squeak (Comanche, SeaSide, Croquet etc) will definitely NOT want to be
beta-testers for VM-level changes. If anything goes wrong (and rest assured,
some things *will* go wrong) then those (perceived or real) mission critical
apps _will_ have to fork onto an older branch and stay there. So my feeling
here would be that we should have parallel releases for a while so that (for
example)

Squeak 3.7 + VI4 = Squeak 4.0
Squeak 3.8 + VI4 = Squeak 4.1
Squeak 3.9 + VI4 = Squeak 4.2

which gives people the time to gradually adopt the changes that are
happening while VI4 "hardens out" to be as solid as VI3.

Note that the psychological effect of the above is (hopefully) going to be
that most people *will* use the VI4 versions (hey, they are the latest
aren't they?) and only those who are truly and deeply concerned about
possible problems will deliberately choose "older" versions which seems
about right to me.

Cheers,
  - Andreas

> -----Original Message-----
> From: squeakfoundation-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org 
> [mailto:squeakfoundation-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org] 
> On Behalf Of Doug Way
> Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2003 6:11 PM
> To: squeakfoundation at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Subject: [Squeakfoundation]Ideas for 3.7
> 
> 
> 
> Rather than waiting until the last minute, I thought I'd 
> throw out some
> ideas now for things which could be part of the 3.7 plan, to get some
> discussion going.
> 
> Input from everyone is welcome, although suggestions should be
> things that are already implemented and just need to be incorporated,
> or something you plan to work on yourself.
> 
> 
> Here's my starter list of large 3.7 items:  (some of these are 
> unfinished items carried
> over from the 3.6 plan)
> 
> - Incorporate SM 1.1 which supports package versions, start working on
> dependency scheme
> - Diego's look enhancements
> - Accufonts
> - ANSI Smalltalk changes (discuss first whether we want to do this)
> - Possibly add a few free TrueType fonts directly to the Basic image,
> e.g. BitStream Vera fonts? Wouldn't have to be set as the default 
> text/list
> fonts necessarily... maybe titlebar font. (also discuss)
> - Maybe remove some more packages once SM 1.1 has settled down
> - (add more here)
> 
> The above items will need shepherds to make sure they get done. (I
> could handle Accufonts, TT fonts, maybe one or two others.) Smaller
> enhancements should be handled via the usual harvesting process
> (e.g. horizontal scrollbar enhancement, which I'll probably approve).
> 
> 
> Other items:
> 
> - Decide whether the following release should be 3.8 or 4.0 (w/image
> format change), someone like Tim will need to coordinate this issue
> - Support for ISO-8859 or multibyte character sets could be considered
> if we determine that it's ready to go in... we don't want MacRoman
> forever. Or, could be in a future release.
> - I will remove all deprecated methods (senders of 
> #deprecated*) in the
> image at the beginning of 3.7alpha, this will be a regular 
> occurrence at
> the beginning of each release. Package owners should do the same.
> (probably there aren't many deprecated methods in external packages
> right now)
> 
> 
> To do for 3.6 final release:
> 
> - Decide whether to have just a Full image (as Daniel suggested) or 
> both a Full and Basic image as part of the release.  I agree that the 
> Full image should be the one promoted as the "default" choice for 
> newbies to try, but I don't see why we couldn't also offer the Basic 
> image as a download... it could be labeled "for developers only" or 
> somesuch.
> - Make sure all of the removed "Squeak Official" Full-distribution 
> packages are still loadable and working in 3.6.  For example, it 
> sounded like PWS was broken (see post from Joshua Gargus on 
> squeak-dev).  One option for that particular package would be to vote 
> on whether we should dump it from the distribution altogether, since 
> it's not really used by anyone.
> 
> 
> That's it for now, gotta run.
> 
> - Doug
> 
> 
> p.s. I'm going out of town now until Saturday, so I won't be able to 
> respond until then.  Unfortunately I didn't have time to incorporate 
> the latest batch of approved fixes before leaving :-( but I'll get to 
> that on Saturday.
> 
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