----- Original Message ----- From: "John Sarkela" sarkela@cox.net To: squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2002 2:17 PM Subject: Re: Squeak Starter
Hi gang,
After a year away from Smalltalk I have come back to the light. Still catching up on all the changes... phew quite a task. Still much of the chatter reminds me of my reaction to Les Miserables... "such a lot of fuss over a piece of toast!" ;-}>
Well, I am sorry to see things going like this. I don't recall volunteering any effort on the current incarnation of Modules in Squeak, but I do recall warning of the difficulty of this task based on my own experiences with Oasis. I look at these posts and to me it seems that folks have seriously underestimated this problem- I get the distinct impression that everyone involved expected this to be a slam-dunk. It's not. There are a lot of folks, including myself, who have a distinct interest in this. We are all blind. Please do not get too excited when one of us says that "Modules are Trees!" while another says that "Modules are Ropes!".
As for complaints about a lack of assistance... this is a recurring theme in most large Squeak projects. I've posted many times over the years about what I was doing with Oasis- to me, it seemed that noone was interested. However, folks were interested... but busy. This happens. Happened to me, happened to Eric Clayberg ( I think... re: Pocket St ). Happened to the StrongTalk foks, I'd imagine - I'm very interested in that project, but busy. Happened to lots of people. Don't undertake a large project and expect a lot of feedback- lack of it does not mean that the project has no interest, just that you need to approach the buy-in a bit differently. The techniques for gaining buy-in that I tried failed, but that doesn't mean that what I was doing was of no value. I thought it was sufficient to let people know what I was doing- that was not correct.
We are a small community, but a rather intelligent one. The problems we routinely tackle are not always easy ones. There have been a lot of constructive contributions to the modules discussions, and those should all be considered. Somewhere in there, a system that makes sense for the highly dynamic Smalltalk world is lurking.
I'd be happy to talk with anyone at OOPSLA this year about Squeak & Modules. I can only discuss my own efforts regarding Oasis ( as I said, I've been rather busy ), but I am always happy to share whatever meaningful ( or meaningless ) insights I may have.
- les