Dear Henrik,
I was reading about the concept of "Delta Modules" on the Swiki (at http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/2063).
The idea of separating the loading of a DeltaModule into an image from the activation of the features in that DelatModule is something that I had not thought about before. I can see this as having two benefits.
(1) A DeltaModule could be loaded, so that I can browse it and see what it does, using all of the usual tools, without having to activate it. (So this would subsume the functionality of the Package Browser.)
(2) Activation and de-activation might be very much faster than loading and unloading.
Are these the only advantages, or are there others?
If these advantages make the separation of loading from activation and unloading from deactivation worthwhile, then shouldn't we make the same separation for Modules themselves, not just for DeltaModules.
Finally, what is the motivation for introducing DeltaModules in the first place? I can see it as a storage optimization (like using diffs in RCS or SCCS rather than storing multiple copies of the same stuff), but that does not mean that it needs to be visible to the Squeak image side of things. If it is meant as a communication protocol optimization, then it would need to be visible to Squeak, since the composing of the base and the delta would have to happen in the image. Is that the reason?
Andrew