A process proposal for 3.10

>From: Lothar Schenk <[hidden email]>
>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
>list<[hidden email]>
>To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
>list<[hidden email]>
>Subject: Re: Removing Morphic
>Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 12:24:27 +0200
>
>J J wrote:
>
> > (it is interesting to watch german speakers trying to decode the
> > swiss dialect. :).
>
>However, they could easily communicate in High German. The difference in
>expressibility is mostly "hear and feel".
>
>Regards, Lothar
>

> In my day job I get a lot of time to think, so today I was thinking
> about  this thread.
>
> It appears to me that all of the current options represent forks in some
> way. While there are a number of new initiatives (understandably) being
> developed to serve their own goals, in their own islands (if you pardon
> the pun), there does not appear to be an implementation or even an
> envisioned solution that 'serves' the community in such a way as to
> promote cohesion and  integration. So I began to think about how one
> might achieve this.
>
> Some extremely talented people have spent a lot of time improving
> morphic. Others are developing frameworks on top of morphic. It would be
> a great shame, perhaps even insulting to even consider 'just throwing it
> out'.
>
> The needs of the community includes a wide range of applications. There
> are those who have their multi-cpu 3D accelerated graphics processors,
> and those for whom raw CPU power is not available. (On my PC 3.9
> typically gives almost a 2 second pause before responding to any mouse
> click in any tool).
>
> Building developer tools in all of these different frameworks is far
> from simple.
>
> Running the developer tools in the same UI framework as the code being
> developed leads to some problems in debugging. (ref. Brick's write up)
> This slows development and probably puts people off developing those
> frameworks further.
>
> Proposal
> --------------
>
> A new gui framework from the ground up, lets call it WIZ, simply because
> I cant think of anything else to call it right now. I think that the
> ground is ready for this, since projects such as Spoon, represent
> potentially new ground anyway, and it may be time to apply some of the
> lessons learnt over the last 20 years. Rather than apply those lessons
> to provide more functionality with less efficiency, aim to  promote a
> 'less is more' philosophy.
>
> This framework should be written with the primary goal of being utterly
> simple to develop boring (for boring read business) applications, and
> developer tools.
>
> A second goal would be the requirement to be efficient and fast. i.e. No
> need for  graphical rotation. Rectangular clip regions only for fast
> screen redraws. Simple heirarchical components, with an inside-out event
> model, and a simple outside-in layout model.
>
> For those that like skins, or platform specific look and feel like.
> Components should be created via factory patterns (or some equivalent),
> and I figure that there may be scope for applying skins as a mix-in, and
> therefore enabling skin switching by switching the current skin-trait.
>
> Spoon potentially supports multiple displays, and recent vms potentially
> support multiple host windows. Therefore should be possible to run two
> frameworks in parallel.
>
> Morphic can have a WIZWindowMorph which hosts a WIZWindow component.
> Thus all of the WIZ developer tools will be available within morphic.
> The same goes for tweak. Each GUI framework fork can move forward
> without being hindered by a lack of developer tool support.
>
> Using WIZ as the primary UI, then may make it possible to decouple
> Morphic from the developer tools. WIZ could be used for debugging
> Morphic. Morphic need not have developer tools at all. (of course
> Morphic can be used for debugging WIZ). In this way WIZ serves the other
> frameworks and their developers.
>
> The base architecture of WIZ being designed to be embedded in other
> frameworks should therefore naturally be able to support native windows,
> if not native widgets. There is of course nothing stopping anyone using
> native widgets if they want to.
>
> WIZ is likely to exist in a distributed world. Some thought should go in
> the architecture design so as to be appropriate for remote use. I.e. A
> wiz viewer onto a headless seaside image should be a far better solution
> than VNC. The notion of a WIZ thin client could be a relatively sensible
> solution to distributed business apps in contrast to the current state
> of the web. (not forgetting the WIZ Firefox plug in)
>
> WIZ could be an adaptation of the current MVC, I would like to consider
> attempting to use MVP. (would someone going to the London meet like to
> ask Andy Bower if he might consider releasing Dolphin's GUI code under
> MIT licence? Now that would be cool)
>
> This email represents a brainstorm, it in no way reflects my own
> knowledge and ability to actually implement such a framework. However I
> think that this kind of visionary dialog might eventually provide an
> avenue that the whole community can focus upon and feel happy with
> supporting.
>
> what do you think?
>
> best regards
>
> Keith
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
>

> [hidden email] wrote:
>>
>> PS. How many Squeakers on squeak-dev use eToys in official Squeak, hands
>> up?
>
>
> I do
>
> Stef
>
>

> Stéphane Rollandin skrev:
>> [hidden email] wrote:
>>>
>>> PS. How many Squeakers on squeak-dev use eToys in official  
>>> Squeak, hands
>>> up?
>>
>>
>> I do
>>
>> Stef
>>
>>
> I do.
> Karl
>

> Stéphane Rollandin skrev:
>> [hidden email] wrote:
>>>
>>> PS. How many Squeakers on squeak-dev use eToys in official  
>>> Squeak, hands
>>> up?
>>
>>
>> I do
>>
>> Stef
>>
>>
> I do.
> Karl
>

> Stéphane Rollandin skrev:
>> goran at krampe.se wrote:
>>>
>>> PS. How many Squeakers on squeak-dev use eToys in official
>>> Squeak, hands
>>> up?
>>
>>
>> I do
>>
>> Stef
>>
>>
> I do.
> Karl
>

>
> On Oct 24, 2006, at 9:46 PM, karl wrote:
>
>> Stéphane Rollandin skrev:
>>> [hidden email] wrote:
>>>>
>>>> PS. How many Squeakers on squeak-dev use eToys in official Squeak,
>>>> hands
>>>> up?
>>>
>>>
>>> I do
>>>
>>> Stef
>>>
>>>
>> I do.
>> Karl
>>
> Count me in.
> Markus

> On 2006 October 24 18:14, [hidden email] wrote:
>  
>> Markus Gaelli <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>    
>>> Count me in.
>>> Markus
>>>      
>> Ok! So I counted 4-5 people. Two questions:
>>
>> 1. Would it be a real problem if you were instead forced to use the
>> Squeakland image etc?
>>    
>
> Not a real problem, I am just playing .. Recently (as in the last year of
> so) , I created eToys projects in 3.8, Squeakland and OLPC, and one even in
> 3.8 Tweak image (which felt like 3.8 eToys from project building
> perspective), so I am not personally tied to eToys being in 3.10 etc (not
> venturing into community building discussion :) )

>  
>> 2. Are you committed in the extent that you would actually join an eToys
>> team making it loadable?
>>    
>
> Having limited time as everyone, I would rather switch completely to
> Squeakland/OLPC for play eToys projects, and along the way spent time
> studying Tweak and Tweak based eToys...
>
> Milan
>
>  
>> Juan has already shown that it can be ripped
>> out - next step would be making it loadable I presume.
>>
>> regards, G�ran
>>    
>
>
>  

> [hidden email] wrote:
> > 2. Are you committed in the extent that you would actually join an eToys
> > team making it loadable? Juan has already shown that it can be ripped
> > out - next step would be making it loadable I presume.
>
> I really despise this logic (and I said that before to you Göran, long
> ago, in another thread on this very list).
>
> open source does NOT mean, to me at last, that having an interest in a
> given feature implies a kind of moral commitment in the development of
> that feature.

> From: Stéphane Rollandin
> Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 9:10 AM
>
> too often on this list we see questions or reports like "this feature is
> broken could it be fixed ?" or "that feature would be nice to have" that
> are only answered by a blunt (and in my view quite rude) "then are you
> ready to work on it ?".
>
> I am tired of this trick. a more correct answer would be in the line of
> "nobody seems to be engaged in doing this, sorry".
>
> I don't see the need to pressure people, especially publicly, and
> especially people who participate in the debate about the future of
> Squeak.
>
> these people should better be thanked for their interest. they are
> contributing ideas and opinions, ok it's not code, but it's not
> valueless either.
>
>
> regards,
>
> Stef

> I agree with you and have been thinking about the implications of scratch
> your own itch programming.  I firmly believe that this community would
> benefit from listing to users and integrating user feedback into the
> process.  We need to find a way to work together to meet the common goal
> of
> relevance for each participating group.  There is a lot going on in the
> community and I believe we would benefit from integrating the many itches
> that are currently being scratched.  Past that we should be looking for
> ways
> to better organize and incorporate user feedback into development teams.
> (I
> learned this valuable lesson in the business world: There is nothing worse
> then spending valuable resources developing terrific features that nobody
> really wants or needs).
>
> I also believe that there are a number of programmers willing to
> participate
> but are not able to lead these efforts mostly because of time constraints
> (not ability).  We need a way to incorporate private company's
> contributions, research projects, volunteer efforts, and user's needs into
> a
> cohesive process that advances Squeak towards relevance.  I'm not sure how
> we are going to get there, but it will be a very good place when we do.
>
> Ron Teitelbaum
> President / Principal Software Engineer
> US Medical Record Specialists
> [hidden email]
>
>> From: Stéphane Rollandin
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 9:10 AM
>>
>> too often on this list we see questions or reports like "this feature is
>> broken could it be fixed ?" or "that feature would be nice to have" that
>> are only answered by a blunt (and in my view quite rude) "then are you
>> ready to work on it ?".
>>
>> I am tired of this trick. a more correct answer would be in the line of
>> "nobody seems to be engaged in doing this, sorry".
>>
>> I don't see the need to pressure people, especially publicly, and
>> especially people who participate in the debate about the future of
>> Squeak.
>>
>> these people should better be thanked for their interest. they are
>> contributing ideas and opinions, ok it's not code, but it's not
>> valueless either.
>>
>>
>> regards,
>>
>> Stef
>
>
>
>
>