Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

Previous Topic Next Topic
 
classic Classic list List threaded Threaded
32 messages Options
12
Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

timrowledge
While looking around in a 4.5 image to prepare to move my code into the ‘official’ image I idly noodled around some of the docking bar menus.

I noticed that the Apps->Services Browser opened something that appears to actually be the PreferencesBrowser, and that after taking a look at the Services classes I have no idea what the entire package is supposed to do nor whether it is used much. Is it actually useful?

I noticed that Apps->Universe Browser doesn’t do anything fun because it can’t load any data from the now non-existent universes.dnsalias.net And there are two entries (Apps->Package Universe Browser & Apps->Universe Browser) that open what looks to be identical browsers. IIRC we are planning to remove this stuff anyway, so perhaps it doesn’t matter too much.

I noticed that Apps->SqueakMap Catalog & Categories sort-of open but after supposedly updating the contents hardly any of the packages you can see via a plain web browser appear in the lists. For example, in the development tools section I see only LispKit & Prolog and not the perhaps 100 other packages.

And since one of the things I was originally intending to check on was space usage, I’m amazed to see 3Mb of strings (that’s about War and Peace), 9000 MCVersionInfo instances (and similar numbers of MCVersionName + DateAndTime, and Date, and Time). Wow. We’re holding on to too much stuff somewhere...

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Useful Latin Phrases:- Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum! = Don't you dare erase my hard disk!



Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

Edgar De Cleene



On 4/8/14, 11:52 PM, "tim Rowledge" <[hidden email]> wrote:

> While looking around in a 4.5 image to prepare to move my code into the
> Œofficial¹ image I idly noodled around some of the docking bar menus.
>
> I noticed that the Apps->Services Browser opened something that appears to
> actually be the PreferencesBrowser, and that after taking a look at the
> Services classes I have no idea what the entire package is supposed to do nor
> whether it is used much. Is it actually useful?
>
> I noticed that Apps->Universe Browser doesn¹t do anything fun because it can¹t
> load any data from the now non-existent universes.dnsalias.net And there are
> two entries (Apps->Package Universe Browser & Apps->Universe Browser) that
> open what looks to be identical browsers. IIRC we are planning to remove this
> stuff anyway, so perhaps it doesn¹t matter too much.
>
> I noticed that Apps->SqueakMap Catalog & Categories sort-of open but after
> supposedly updating the contents hardly any of the packages you can see via a
> plain web browser appear in the lists. For example, in the development tools
> section I see only LispKit & Prolog and not the perhaps 100 other packages.
>
> And since one of the things I was originally intending to check on was space
> usage, I¹m amazed to see 3Mb of strings (that¹s about War and Peace), 9000
> MCVersionInfo instances (and similar numbers of MCVersionName + DateAndTime,
> and Date, and Time). Wow. We¹re holding on to too much stuff somewhere...
>
> tim

>From 3.10 times I saying we should rip Universes, SqueakMap ,ScriptLoader,
etc and stick only to Monticello as a way to load any into the .image.

As Pharo and Cuis do today.

Specially look Cuis GitHub package way, it's where we should go in 4.6 and
beyond.

Not sure about Services, but think Andreas talk about rip this also.

Edgar



Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

David T. Lewis
On Wed, Apr 09, 2014 at 08:23:43AM -0300, Edgar J. De Cleene wrote:

>
>
>
> On 4/8/14, 11:52 PM, "tim Rowledge" <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> > While looking around in a 4.5 image to prepare to move my code into the
> > ?official? image I idly noodled around some of the docking bar menus.
> >
> > I noticed that the Apps->Services Browser opened something that appears to
> > actually be the PreferencesBrowser, and that after taking a look at the
> > Services classes I have no idea what the entire package is supposed to do nor
> > whether it is used much. Is it actually useful?
> >
> > I noticed that Apps->Universe Browser doesn?t do anything fun because it can?t
> > load any data from the now non-existent universes.dnsalias.net And there are
> > two entries (Apps->Package Universe Browser & Apps->Universe Browser) that
> > open what looks to be identical browsers. IIRC we are planning to remove this
> > stuff anyway, so perhaps it doesn?t matter too much.
> >
> > I noticed that Apps->SqueakMap Catalog & Categories sort-of open but after
> > supposedly updating the contents hardly any of the packages you can see via a
> > plain web browser appear in the lists. For example, in the development tools
> > section I see only LispKit & Prolog and not the perhaps 100 other packages.
> >
> > And since one of the things I was originally intending to check on was space
> > usage, I?m amazed to see 3Mb of strings (that?s about War and Peace), 9000
> > MCVersionInfo instances (and similar numbers of MCVersionName + DateAndTime,
> > and Date, and Time). Wow. We?re holding on to too much stuff somewhere...
> >
> > tim
>
> From 3.10 times I saying we should rip Universes, SqueakMap ,ScriptLoader,
> etc and stick only to Monticello as a way to load any into the .image.
>
> As Pharo and Cuis do today.
>
> Specially look Cuis GitHub package way, it's where we should go in 4.6 and
> beyond.
>
> Not sure about Services, but think Andreas talk about rip this also.
>
> Edgar
>

SqueakMap uses Monticello to load packages, so that is not a problem. It
also allows other loaders to be used, which may be important for older
packages.

The Cuis approach is interesting, but we do not need *more* ways to find
loadable packages. I have tried the Cuis approach (I put OSProcess into
a package for Cuis). It is a good idea with some advantages, but it would
not be helpful as a "Squeak map catalog" because it relies on active package
maintainers who are participating in the development process.

Pharo looks like a mess to me. Everything is declared to work with some
version of stuff that you don't have. Let's not go there.

The only problem I have with SqueakMap is that for packages like
TwosComplement or PunchedCards on SqueakMap, which run on more or less
any version of Squeak, I am expected to remember to update those packages
on SqueakMap every time someone releases a new Squeak version. This is
annoying and eventually I might run out of patience and forget to do it.

Dave


Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

Edgar De Cleene



On 4/9/14, 9:18 AM, "David T. Lewis" <[hidden email]> wrote:

> The Cuis approach is interesting, but we do not need *more* ways to find
> loadable packages. I have tried the Cuis approach (I put OSProcess into
> a package for Cuis).


Where I found OSProcess  and CommandShell for Cuis?

>It is a good idea with some advantages, but it would
> not be helpful as a "Squeak map catalog" because it relies on active package
> maintainers who are participating in the development process.


Many packages work in 4.5 , but not listed as such in SqueakMap.

Edgar



Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

David T. Lewis
>
>
>
> On 4/9/14, 9:18 AM, "David T. Lewis" <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> The Cuis approach is interesting, but we do not need *more* ways to find
>> loadable packages. I have tried the Cuis approach (I put OSProcess into
>> a package for Cuis).
>
>
> Where I found OSProcess  and CommandShell for Cuis?

OSProcess is at https://github.com/dtlewis290/Cuis-Smalltalk-OSProcess on
GitHub. I have not updated CommandShell for Cuis (that is more work).


>
>>It is a good idea with some advantages, but it would
>> not be helpful as a "Squeak map catalog" because it relies on active
>> package
>> maintainers who are participating in the development process.
>
>
> Many packages work in 4.5 , but not listed as such in SqueakMap.
>
> Edgar
>
>
>



Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

Chris Muller-3
In reply to this post by timrowledge
Hi Tim,

On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 9:52 PM, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote:
> While looking around in a 4.5 image to prepare to move my code into the ‘official’ image I idly noodled around some of the docking bar menus.
>
> I noticed that the Apps->Services Browser opened something that appears to actually be the PreferencesBrowser, and that after taking a look at the Services classes I have no idea what the entire package is supposed to do nor whether it is used much. Is it actually useful?

I'm not sure why Services Browser seems to open Preferences Browser,
maybe THAT's a bug, but Services are definitely used and useful.

They're so that external frameworks can extend the IDE.  For example,
that MC History function which you wanted and got delivered to you
uses the Services framework.  :)

Check out "Create new service..." on the Methods menu.

> I noticed that Apps->Universe Browser doesn’t do anything fun because it can’t load any data from the now non-existent universes.dnsalias.net And there are two entries (Apps->Package Universe Browser & Apps->Universe Browser) that open what looks to be identical browsers. IIRC we are planning to remove this stuff anyway, so perhaps it doesn’t matter too much.

Universes is not used at all, TMK.

> I noticed that Apps->SqueakMap Catalog & Categories sort-of open but after supposedly updating the contents hardly any of the packages you can see via a plain web browser appear in the lists. For example, in the development tools section I see only LispKit & Prolog and not the perhaps 100 other packages.

That's because they weren't tagged as working in 4.5 and you didn't
unselect "safely available" packages.

Displaying all packages for all versions of Squeak is much worse than
displaying the just ones that WORK.  Because SM developed a reputation
over the years that "nothing works".  In actuality, most everything
works as long as you load it into the Squeak version it is designated
for.

If something has not been re-designated for latest 4.5 of Squeak then,
by definition, it is "rotting" and so should not be displayed in the
list.

Please read for refresher:

    http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6182
    http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6183
    http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6180

> And since one of the things I was originally intending to check on was space usage, I’m amazed to see 3Mb of strings (that’s about War and Peace), 9000 MCVersionInfo instances (and similar numbers of MCVersionName + DateAndTime, and Date, and Time). Wow. We’re holding on to too much stuff somewhere...

Yes, and as you know I already addressed MCVersionInfo bloat (just
select "flush cached versions and ancestry") but nobody liked it, so
maybe you can improve it so they will.

I also introduced String #empty, but we still have thousands of empty
ByteStrings in the image, which is kinda useless.

Also, you may want to check how many duplicate Date's you have and do
something to canonicalize your Date instances.

Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

Chris Muller-3
In reply to this post by David T. Lewis
> The only problem I have with SqueakMap is that for packages like
> TwosComplement or PunchedCards on SqueakMap, which run on more or less
> any version of Squeak, I am expected to remember to update those packages
> on SqueakMap every time someone releases a new Squeak version. This is
> annoying and eventually I might run out of patience and forget to do it.

What's more annoying is bit-rot, having a bunch of stuff listed in
SqueakMap that doesn't work.  That's what led to its horrible
reputation.

The whole purpose of the Catalog is to tell me what software is
_available_ -- e.g., what *works*.  If it can't do that, it's useless.
 The only way it can do that is to require that we manually designate
new releases of packages for each new release of Squeak.

Which is why I tried to make that process as quick and painless as
possible.  And it's clearly documented here:

   http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6180

It takes just a few minutes per package.  How often are new Squeak
versions put out?  So, a few minutes per year per package seems like a
small price to pay for solving the bit-rot problem..

Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

timrowledge
In reply to this post by David T. Lewis

On 09-04-2014, at 5:18 AM, David T. Lewis <[hidden email]> wrote:
> The only problem I have with SqueakMap is that for packages like
> TwosComplement or PunchedCards on SqueakMap, which run on more or less
> any version of Squeak, I am expected to remember to update those packages
> on SqueakMap every time someone releases a new Squeak version. This is
> annoying and eventually I might run out of patience and forget to do it.

That’s an important issue; somebody either leaving the squeak world, or being busy, or forgetful or whatever, can effectively kill a package. There must be a way to allow ‘other’ to tag a package as ok for a later release. There probably ought to be away to wrest ownership from an absent landlord.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Strange OpCodes: LAG: Load and Garble



Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

timrowledge
In reply to this post by Chris Muller-3

On 09-04-2014, at 9:12 AM, Chris Muller <[hidden email]> wrote:
> I'm not sure why Services Browser seems to open Preferences Browser,
> maybe THAT's a bug, but Services are definitely used and useful.
>
> They're so that external frameworks can extend the IDE.  For example,
> that MC History function which you wanted and got delivered to you
> uses the Services framework.  :)
>
> Check out "Create new service..." on the Methods menu.

OK, good to know it is used. Some class comments etc might have helped to make it more obvious what it is for, some easily findable doc on the swiki would be nice… oh, wait, buried in WorldMenuProvider is #servicesHelpText - which is supposed to appear in some response to #preferencesMenuhelpOnServices. Except that I can’t find any reference to that anywhere, even doing a sources scan, so it looks like there isn’t any way one would see that.

The browser class ‘ServiceBrowserMorph’ seems like it must have been eviscerated since there is only one method, which over-rides the PreferenceBrowserMorph so as to not have the row of buttons in the top pane. That really can’t be what was intended, surely.

There’s an old saying of Adele’s - “if it isn’t documented, it doesn’t exist. If it doesn’t exist, what did we pay you for?” Now, while there may not be much in the way of payment going on, the spirit of the aphorism is really important. No doc means nobody is likely to understand WTF is going on. Which means it won’t get used properly, won’t be debugged and improved properly and before you know it you’ve got Ruby. Or Java. We collectively should hold ourselves to a higher standard on not adding code to the system that isn’t adequately described, and preferably provided with examples and tests.

>>
>> I noticed that Apps->SqueakMap Catalog & Categories sort-of open but after supposedly updating the contents hardly any of the packages you can see via a plain web browser appear in the lists. For example, in the development tools section I see only LispKit & Prolog and not the perhaps 100 other packages.
>
> That's because they weren't tagged as working in 4.5 and you didn't
> unselect "safely available" packages.

OK, that’s sensible BUT another case where we are failing to provide the user with important documentation in a sensible place. Perhaps nothing more is needed than a pane clearly showing which filtering is in use? Yes, I see the checkboxes in the menu and even a brief mention in the help pop-up (which is a big improvement over the typical app, by the way).


>> And since one of the things I was originally intending to check on was space usage, I’m amazed to see 3Mb of strings (that’s about War and Peace), 9000 MCVersionInfo instances (and similar numbers of MCVersionName + DateAndTime, and Date, and Time). Wow. We’re holding on to too much stuff somewhere...
>
> Yes, and as you know I already addressed MCVersionInfo bloat (just
> select "flush cached versions and ancestry") but nobody liked it, so
> maybe you can improve it so they will.

Vaguely remembered, mostly forgotten, quickly checked and claims to have cut 2Mb .. and it does indeed reduce the image size on disk. That’s also cut 7000 MCinfo-wotsits so we’re down to just 2500 (why are any left?) and a similar number of DateAndTime/Date/Time, so clearly they are tightly related.
 (Fun aside; inspecting MCVersionInfo allInstances, select one at random, ‘chase pointers’ - and a large list of updates start loading…. adding 13Mb to the image size. Yippee.)

>
> I also introduced String #empty, but we still have thousands of empty
> ByteStrings in the image, which is kinda useless.
Damn straight. Wonder if I can find them all….

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Don't be sexist; broads hate that!



Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

Colin Putney-3



On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 1:01 PM, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote:
 
Vaguely remembered, mostly forgotten, quickly checked and claims to have cut 2Mb .. and it does indeed reduce the image size on disk. That’s also cut 7000 MCinfo-wotsits so we’re down to just 2500 (why are any left?) and a similar number of DateAndTime/Date/Time, so clearly they are tightly related.
 (Fun aside; inspecting MCVersionInfo allInstances, select one at random, ‘chase pointers’ - and a large list of updates start loading…. adding 13Mb to the image size. Yippee.)

That's why nobody liked it. :-)

Colin


Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

Chris Muller-3
In reply to this post by timrowledge
On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 12:05 PM, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> On 09-04-2014, at 5:18 AM, David T. Lewis <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> The only problem I have with SqueakMap is that for packages like
>> TwosComplement or PunchedCards on SqueakMap, which run on more or less
>> any version of Squeak, I am expected to remember to update those packages
>> on SqueakMap every time someone releases a new Squeak version. This is
>> annoying and eventually I might run out of patience and forget to do it.

By following the SqueakMap Publishing Guidelines, this issue is
avoided / solved.

    http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6182

See under heading "Guidelines for writing the script for the head release".

To wit, it suggests using the provided script to enable a trunk-like
process for every cataloged project.  For example, you can simply
"install" it again and it will do a merge so even if you've made local
changes, you won't lose them.

(But, please note the Guidelines also request you make at least one
*fixed-configuration* so its at least preserved in SOME version of
Squeak, protected from bit-rot.

> That’s an important issue; somebody either leaving the squeak world, or being busy, or forgetful or whatever, can effectively kill a package.

I somewhat disagree.  Packages don't die.  They just "sleep" until the
need it fulfilled is needed again, and someone comes looking and finds
it and, even if only a fixed-configuration for an older version of
Squeak is available, by the Publishing Guidelines they at least know
it will WORK in taht version of Squeak and can do the (usually simple)
work of porting it forward to current Squeak.

> There must be a way to allow ‘other’ to tag a package as ok for a later release.

Yes, it's the head release described by the Publishing Guidelines.

> There probably ought to be away to wrest ownership from an absent landlord.

Yes, that is requirement #9 at http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6183,
which is fulfilled by the Community-Supported tag.  We used when YOU
were the absent landlord for a few years..  :)

   http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2012-July/164962.html

Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

timrowledge
In reply to this post by Colin Putney-3

On 09-04-2014, at 11:07 AM, Colin Putney <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 1:01 PM, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote:
>  
> Vaguely remembered, mostly forgotten, quickly checked and claims to have cut 2Mb .. and it does indeed reduce the image size on disk. That’s also cut 7000 MCinfo-wotsits so we’re down to just 2500 (why are any left?) and a similar number of DateAndTime/Date/Time, so clearly they are tightly related.
>  (Fun aside; inspecting MCVersionInfo allInstances, select one at random, ‘chase pointers’ - and a large list of updates start loading…. adding 13Mb to the image size. Yippee.)
>
> That's why nobody liked it. :-)

It may be that Chris’s technique for dumping the ancestry was less than perfect, but I’d say the real problem would likely be the ancestry code. Is there any plausible reason for a ‘clean’ image to have 9000 version-doohickeys taking up a couple of MB?


tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Strange OpCodes: PO: Punch Operator



Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

Chris Muller-3
>> On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 1:01 PM, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> Vaguely remembered, mostly forgotten, quickly checked and claims to have cut 2Mb .. and it does indeed reduce the image size on disk. That’s also cut 7000 MCinfo-wotsits so we’re down to just 2500 (why are any left?) and a similar number of DateAndTime/Date/Time, so clearly they are tightly related.
>>  (Fun aside; inspecting MCVersionInfo allInstances, select one at random, ‘chase pointers’ - and a large list of updates start loading…. adding 13Mb to the image size. Yippee.)
>>
>> That's why nobody liked it. :-)
>
> It may be that Chris’s technique for dumping the ancestry was less than perfect, but I’d say the real problem would likely be the ancestry code. Is there any plausible reason for a ‘clean’ image to have 9000 version-doohickeys taking up a couple of MB?

Except for a proxy bug which needs fixed, I'd love to know how you
would possibly improve it even if you could do so by the mere snap of
your finger.  Because I wanted the best of both worlds.  I want 1) the
ability to clean / reduce an image, 2) WITHOUT losing the ability to
retrieve the ancestry.  Oh, and 3) it'd be nice if I didn't have to do
a special UI operation to "retrieve the ancestry", just have the
system retrieve it automatically please only if I do something in the
IDE that requires it.

Again, assuming all the proxy-bugs fixed, what more could one want in
terms of meeting all the demands we want as developers?

Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

timrowledge

On 09-04-2014, at 11:37 AM, Chris Muller <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Again, assuming all the proxy-bugs fixed, what more could one want in
> terms of meeting all the demands we want as developers?
>

Wasn’t criticising what you did because I don’t know what you did - merely allowing that Colin might know of some problem in your approach. Thus the "I’d say the real problem would likely be the ancestry code” bit.

I agree about what is wanted (except I’d like to know how we could get rid of the other 2500 version-thingies as well) and the proxy problems.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
There are no stupid questions. But, there are a lot of inquisitive idiots.



Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

Chris Muller-3
> I agree about what is wanted (except I’d like to know how we could get rid of the other 2500 version-thingies as well) and the proxy problems.

See the picture.

The idea was to make that "10" a preference value, and to change the
tools like "History" to respect the preference.  Because usually we
don't need to look back more than 10 versions, but when we did it'd
retrieve it automatically, dynamically, silently.

And to use that same concept to speed up our trunk-development process
because how much time do we spend waiting on "Updating
www.source.squeak.org/trunk" progress bar?



temp.png (43K) Download Attachment
Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

timrowledge
In reply to this post by Chris Muller-3
I’m both glad that there is actual documentation for this and saddened that I’ve had such a bad time in general looking for doc that I’ve almost given up.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
I am still waiting for the advent of the computer science groupie.



Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

Colin Putney-3
In reply to this post by timrowledge



On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 1:27 PM, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote:
 
 It may be that Chris’s technique for dumping the ancestry was less than perfect, but I’d say the real problem would likely be the ancestry code. Is there any plausible reason for a ‘clean’ image to have 9000 version-doohickeys taking up a couple of MB?

Sure. It's the same reason we ship 40MB of sources/changes files, rather than condensing sources frequently. This the revision history of the code in the image, and the fact that it's already there with no effort makes it easier to contribute to Squeak. That's helpful to newbies, and convenient for experienced developers. 

It wouldn't be that hard to come up with a scheme for shipping the version history separately and loading it when needed, but nobody has found that important.

Colin


Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

Colin Putney-3
In reply to this post by Chris Muller-3



On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 1:37 PM, Chris Muller <[hidden email]> wrote:
 
Except for a proxy bug which needs fixed, I'd love to know how you
would possibly improve it even if you could do so by the mere snap of
your finger.  Because I wanted the best of both worlds.  I want 1) the
ability to clean / reduce an image, 2) WITHOUT losing the ability to
retrieve the ancestry.  Oh, and 3) it'd be nice if I didn't have to do
a special UI operation to "retrieve the ancestry", just have the
system retrieve it automatically please only if I do something in the
IDE that requires it.

Again, assuming all the proxy-bugs fixed, what more could one want in
terms of meeting all the demands we want as developers?

How about not downloading megabytes of data from the network when I didn't tell it to do that? Tim stumbled over the proxies in a completely different way than I did, and was similarly surprised at what happened. Proxies are a useful tool, but they should be kept in the bottom of the toolbox and only used in special circumstances. The vanilla image shouldn't have proxies. 

 Colin



Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

timrowledge
In reply to this post by Chris Muller-3

On 09-04-2014, at 11:53 AM, Chris Muller <[hidden email]> wrote:

>> I agree about what is wanted (except I’d like to know how we could get rid of the other 2500 version-thingies as well) and the proxy problems.
>
> See the picture.
>
> The idea was to make that "10" a preference value, and to change the
> tools like "History" to respect the preference.  Because usually we
> don't need to look back more than 10 versions, but when we did it'd
> retrieve it automatically, dynamically, silently.

Nice idea in general though I’m not often a fan of the ‘silent’ bit. And especially not a fan of the ‘unasked massive file loading’ aspect. Replacing the ancestry with a stub that can fetch the rest of the history is an excellent idea but how about making it ask the user first? It may well be inconvenient or even impossible to fetch the files, for example. I can see that there might be places where allowing the user to prevent loading something might cause other problems, but surely catching those cases would be preferable to getting the error from a failed network probe?

>
> And to use that same concept to speed up our trunk-development process
> because how much time do we spend waiting on "Updating
> www.source.squeak.org/trunk" progress bar?

If it only needs doing once for a particular image/repository (?) then I’m not sure that it is a bad thing to notify the user about, give them a chance to decline, proceed if wanted.


tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Fractured Idiom:- APRES MOE LE DELUGE - Larry and Curly get wet



Reply | Threaded
Open this post in threaded view
|

Re: Services, Universes, SqueakMap browser all seem broken in 4.5

Chris Muller-4
In reply to this post by Colin Putney-3
>> Except for a proxy bug which needs fixed, I'd love to know how you
>> would possibly improve it even if you could do so by the mere snap of
>> your finger.  Because I wanted the best of both worlds.  I want 1) the
>> ability to clean / reduce an image, 2) WITHOUT losing the ability to
>> retrieve the ancestry.  Oh, and 3) it'd be nice if I didn't have to do
>> a special UI operation to "retrieve the ancestry", just have the
>> system retrieve it automatically please only if I do something in the
>> IDE that requires it.
>>
>> Again, assuming all the proxy-bugs fixed, what more could one want in
>> terms of meeting all the demands we want as developers?
>
> How about not downloading megabytes of data from the network when I didn't
> tell it to do that?

There are lots of operations in the IDE that cause network accesses,
and none of them advertise in advance that they'll access the network.
 So this argument is not really a good one against.

In fact, for it to happen with this, one _first_ had to explicitly
tell it to stub it out!  So assuming one knows what that means, and
then subsequently "told" it to do something related to ancestry -- I
think the software should be "impressive" more than surprising.   :)
It's simply doing what you told it, without question or hassles or
interruptions or excuses why it can't.   (although it may need a
performance tweak),

> Tim stumbled over the proxies in a completely different
> way than I did, and was similarly surprised at what happened.

Tim is surprised by everything.  :)

> Proxies are a
> useful tool, but they should be kept in the bottom of the toolbox and only
> used in special circumstances. The vanilla image shouldn't have proxies.

I think this is your best argument.  I agree Proxies are a powerful
tool to be used sparingly with deliberate care, but it basically boils
down to using a become:, which we already use in numerous other places
in the image.

12