I just tried to get a new Squeak environment up and running, and it reminded me of some things I was wondering about. This is all in the context of http://squeak.org/Download/.
1. I can't find a link to the current image/changes set on the download page. Everything points to the all-in-one, which is good for the total beginner, but not so good for the mere rank amateur. For example, the link under "Image File" points to the all-in-one.
2. Looking at http://www.squeakvm.org, I can't find any description of the difference between the "Cog VM" and the "Stack VM", which makes me worry some. Choices without any information are off-putting. I'd suggest that the "stable binaries" be listed first on the page, then the "continuous build" ones listed afterwards, if that's what you'd recommend a beginner go with.
3. If I persist in looking for the image file, I can follow the link to the FTP site, but then I have two choices: "Squeak" and "SqueakCore", and nothing has set me up to understand the difference between these two.
4. In general, I'd suggest having direct links to a single current image and a single current VM for each platform, rather than going through squeakvm.org and FTP.
So, what is the difference between the Cog VM and the Stack VM? I have a vague feeling that Cog is the "new thing", which leaves Stack to be the "old thing", but that's just inference. Is Cog a register machine and Stack a stack machine, under the hood?
Regards, Johann
beginners@lists.squeakfoundation.org