[Vm-dev] [squeak-dev] VM download location confusion

[tim Rowledge]

I really hope you didn't think of my message as an attack on you, Esteban, because it wasn't aimed at anyone. Somehow, collectively, we've got into a bit of a mess and we have to communally get out of it.

I can't make any sort of comment on any of the assorted build mechanisms currently in use (except my own very simple RISC OS setup which is as simple as I think it could possibly be, because there aren't any complicated multi-platform issues that plague RISC OS) because I've carefully not dealt with any of the insanely complex unix build requirements I first saw when Ian wrote the initial autoconf stuff. It scares me. Which is best, how best to use it… that's up to other people. It seems to me that having multiple source repositories is dangerous, so we need some coming together on that. My only input there would be "please make sure it is eventually something I can make use with RISC OS, somehow".

The bit I care about is making the results easy to find, evaluate and download. Clearly, some improvement is needed in several places. The simplest part to fix is probably to make sure you have permissions to update the mac page on squeakvm.org. The thing is, when I go to squeak.org and download a vm I expect to get something that calls itself a squeak vm - and similarly if I go to pharo.org to get a pharo package I expect a pharo vm. It's not any sort of judgement about the quality of either but it you downloaded something thinking it was Pages you'd be a bit confused if it called itself Word. 

As for squeak vs pharo code - it seems to me that pharo forked in order to do different things (or why fork?) and so I'd expect differences to arise over time. If we have an effective code management system in place that shouldn't be an obstacle to sharing as much code as possible and building all required combinations of vm. Hopefully we can make it all a bit simpler than the long list of different build processes Tobias listed in his 25 sept message.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Useful random insult:- His future is behind schedule.