A final thoughtRe: Where Squeak is Headed [was: Module discussion]

Hi dan and other,

I just want to react about the following paragraph
I think that you are not in cause for the failure of the module, nor 
henrik. I think that we failed
but failing is not that a problem (even if henrik can be bitter now) 
because we learned in the process.
I think that not throwing away the modules now would have been a big 
mistake because they were obviously on the
way and hampering more than supporting the community.

I think that this was courageous for you to push the module in the 
stream when there were (as the story proved it)
in a not so good state. I think that it helps the community to think in 
terms of modules, packages
and other concepts. So we learned that is important. Now I wish a lot 
of success to the next ones.

Stef

> Modules
> I have just read the summary of the SqueakBOF discussion sent out by 
> Michael Rueger.  Interestingly, this reflects the sentiments of Squeak 
> Central as well.  Moreover, as Michael mentioned, Scott Wallace, on 
> whom the burden of the fork fell most heavily within SqC, has dealt 
> quite carefully with most of the incompatibilities and, I believe, 
> even has a working draft for a 3.4 image.
>
> Something needs to be said at this juncture.  There are a number of 
> reasons that the 3.3 run at modularization did not succeed.  It 
> retained the name space experiment from my work on Environments, it 
> forced some changes that could have remained backward compatible, it 
> was invasive against Les Tyrell's exhortation, it was not embraced by 
> the rest of the community in spite of a courageous and intense push by 
> Henrik Gedenryd.  If any fault is to be ascribed for this particular 
> false start, it should rest with me and not with Henrik.  I have made 
> mistakes before and I intend to go on making them, hopefully not all 
> the time.  Henrik put a huge amount of work into the project, for 
> which he can feel proud, and I don't think anyone would fault the job 
> he did within the context of the project.  There is much to be 
> salvaged both from the code and from the early experience of trying to 
> modularize the Squeak image.
>
> Having learned a lesson, we have the opportunity to again choose a 
> path to a more modular world.  Examples exist in nearly every other 
> mature Smalltalk, both of simple modules and more comprehensive 
> packages.  I would like to see a module system that was completely 
> independent of the rest of Squeak, along the lines that Les Tyrell 
> suggests.  A move to life with SqueakMap should greatly encourage this 
> property.