VM team

>  
> The Squeak oversight board suggested that we formalize a VM team
> (http://squeakboard.wordpress.com/) and Bert asked if I would be willing
> to serve as team leader. I replied that I would be happy to do so.
>
> I'd like to start by asking the list, and specifically the major platform
> developers (Ian, John, Andreas) for your support - do you agree that
> this is a good idea, and are you willing to have me serve as team
> leader?
>
> We will need to set some team objectives, and then establish a plan
> to achieve them. For starters, here are some initial ideas for a set
> of VM team objectives. All comments, additions, deletions, objections,
> etc are welcome.
>
> - Community
>   - Communicate status and announcements to the community
>   - Periodically update team objectives based on community input
>   - Ensure availability of known-good versions (SqueakMap, Universes, SqueakSource)
>   - Identify where help is needed (e.g. Sugar, Ubuntu, sound support)
>   - Where appropriate, inform Board of resource or funding needs
>     (e.g. access to computers for building and testing VM distributions)
> - Support Squeak as an open system
>   - Support educational goals, an accessible VM is part of Squeak as a learning tool
>   - Write it in Squeak, run it in Squeak, debug it in Squeak (InterpreterSimulator should work)
>   - Everyone should be able to explore and create their own Squeak VM
>   - Ensure license integrity
> - Provide solid base to enable VM distributions
>   - Support distribution developers (Ian, John, Andreas, Tim, others)
>     - Primary support for Mac/Win/unix/iSqueak
>     - Enablement for others including RiscOS and SqueakNOS, new projects
>     - Identify resources to support distribution developers
>   - Coordinate changes across the several platform source trees and VMMaker
>   - Ensure owners and maintainers for plugins
>   - Drive resolution of Mantis issues
> - Provide base to support new ideas for VM
>   - Support and enable new development (Spoon, Exupery, Cog, Hydra, others)
>   - Enable new image formats (including 64-bit object memory, Cog)
> - Support Squeak new directions
>   - Support eToys, OLPC, SqueakNOS, Cuis, Pharo
>   - Provide common VM where possible, encourage extensions as needed
>
> Dave
>

> Sounds good to me. I see this more as a formalization of the  
> arrangement we already have, since you have been taking Tim's role  
> lately with doing most of the integration etc. So you've got my  
> support here.
>
> In terms of what to do I think what we most need is a bit more  
> clarity for people. For example, how does one actually set up a  
> VMMaker image? You kinda need bits from the four corners of the  
> world and I don't think the process is described anywhere. The  
> shorthand in my VMMaker image says:
> * Load Speech from http://source.squeakfoundation.org/39a
> * Load FFI from Universes
> * Load VMMaker from http://squeaksource.com/VMMaker
> * Load Balloon3D-Constants, Balloon3D-Plugins from http://squeaksource.com/Balloon3D
> * Load Freetype somehow
>
> This could certainly be improved. The simulator is another piece of  
> the story where we should spend enough time that it can actually be  
> used for simulation of various aspects. And then maybe fix the cruel  
> and unusal UI for VMMaker ;-)
>
> Cheers,
>  - Andreas

>
> Sounds good to me. I see this more as a formalization of the arrangement
> we already have, since you have been taking Tim's role lately with doing
> most of the integration etc. So you've got my support here.
>
> In terms of what to do I think what we most need is a bit more clarity
> for people. For example, how does one actually set up a VMMaker image?
> You kinda need bits from the four corners of the world and I don't think
> the process is described anywhere. The shorthand in my VMMaker image says:
> * Load Speech from http://source.squeakfoundation.org/39a
> * Load FFI from Universes
> * Load VMMaker from http://squeaksource.com/VMMaker
> * Load Balloon3D-Constants, Balloon3D-Plugins from
> http://squeaksource.com/Balloon3D
> * Load Freetype somehow
>
> This could certainly be improved. The simulator is another piece of the
> story where we should spend enough time that it can actually be used for
> simulation of various aspects. And then maybe fix the cruel and unusal
> UI for VMMaker ;-)
>
> Cheers,
>   - Andreas
>
> David T. Lewis wrote:
> >
> >The Squeak oversight board suggested that we formalize a VM team
> >(http://squeakboard.wordpress.com/) and Bert asked if I would be willing
> >to serve as team leader. I replied that I would be happy to do so.
> >
> >I'd like to start by asking the list, and specifically the major platform
> >developers (Ian, John, Andreas) for your support - do you agree that
> >this is a good idea, and are you willing to have me serve as team
> >leader?
> >
> >We will need to set some team objectives, and then establish a plan
> >to achieve them. For starters, here are some initial ideas for a set
> >of VM team objectives. All comments, additions, deletions, objections,
> >etc are welcome.
> >
> >- Community
> >  - Communicate status and announcements to the community
> >  - Periodically update team objectives based on community input
> >  - Ensure availability of known-good versions (SqueakMap, Universes,
> >  SqueakSource)
> >  - Identify where help is needed (e.g. Sugar, Ubuntu, sound support)
> >  - Where appropriate, inform Board of resource or funding needs
> >    (e.g. access to computers for building and testing VM distributions)
> >- Support Squeak as an open system
> >  - Support educational goals, an accessible VM is part of Squeak as a
> >  learning tool
> >  - Write it in Squeak, run it in Squeak, debug it in Squeak
> >  (InterpreterSimulator should work)
> >  - Everyone should be able to explore and create their own Squeak VM
> >  - Ensure license integrity
> >- Provide solid base to enable VM distributions
> >  - Support distribution developers (Ian, John, Andreas, Tim, others)
> >    - Primary support for Mac/Win/unix/iSqueak
> >    - Enablement for others including RiscOS and SqueakNOS, new projects
> >    - Identify resources to support distribution developers
> >  - Coordinate changes across the several platform source trees and VMMaker
> >  - Ensure owners and maintainers for plugins
> >  - Drive resolution of Mantis issues
> >- Provide base to support new ideas for VM
> >  - Support and enable new development (Spoon, Exupery, Cog, Hydra, others)
> >  - Enable new image formats (including 64-bit object memory, Cog)
> >- Support Squeak new directions
> >  - Support eToys, OLPC, SqueakNOS, Cuis, Pharo
> >  - Provide common VM where possible, encourage extensions as needed
> >
> >Dave
> >

>
>The Squeak oversight board suggested that we formalize a VM team
>(http://squeakboard.wordpress.com/) and Bert asked if I would be willing
>to serve as team leader. I replied that I would be happy to do so.
>
>I'd like to start by asking the list, and specifically the major platform
>developers (Ian, John, Andreas) for your support - do you agree that
>this is a good idea, and are you willing to have me serve as team
>leader?
>
>We will need to set some team objectives, and then establish a plan
>to achieve them. For starters, here are some initial ideas for a set
>of VM team objectives. All comments, additions, deletions, objections,
>etc are welcome.
>
>- Community
>  - Communicate status and announcements to the community
>  - Periodically update team objectives based on community input
>  - Ensure availability of known-good versions (SqueakMap, Universes, SqueakSource)
>  - Identify where help is needed (e.g. Sugar, Ubuntu, sound support)
>  - Where appropriate, inform Board of resource or funding needs
>    (e.g. access to computers for building and testing VM distributions)
>- Support Squeak as an open system
>  - Support educational goals, an accessible VM is part of Squeak as a learning tool
>  - Write it in Squeak, run it in Squeak, debug it in Squeak (InterpreterSimulator should work)
>  - Everyone should be able to explore and create their own Squeak VM
>  - Ensure license integrity
>- Provide solid base to enable VM distributions
>  - Support distribution developers (Ian, John, Andreas, Tim, others)
>    - Primary support for Mac/Win/unix/iSqueak
>    - Enablement for others including RiscOS and SqueakNOS, new projects
>    - Identify resources to support distribution developers
>  - Coordinate changes across the several platform source trees and VMMaker
>  - Ensure owners and maintainers for plugins
>  - Drive resolution of Mantis issues
>- Provide base to support new ideas for VM
>  - Support and enable new development (Spoon, Exupery, Cog, Hydra, others)
>  - Enable new image formats (including 64-bit object memory, Cog)
>- Support Squeak new directions
>  - Support eToys, OLPC, SqueakNOS, Cuis, Pharo
>  - Provide common VM where possible, encourage extensions as needed
>
>Dave

>  
> Maybe now would be the time to go through the plugins and make all the names of source folders, plugin names and generated plugin names more consistent with the convention? Some cleanup would surely improve things for the future by reducing the confusion factor.
>
> Way back, I was rooting around everywhere learning where things happened and it being the first time through, I was initially quite confused by the following:
>
> internal plugin B3DEnginePlugin generated as Squeak3D
> internal plugin BalloonEnginePlugin generated as B2DPlugin
> internal plugin BitBltSimulation generated as BitBltPlugin
> internal plugin DSAPlugin generated as DSAPrims
> internal plugin DeflatePlugin generated as ZipPlugin
> internal plugin FFIPlugin generated as SqueakFFIPrims
> internal plugin KlattSynthesizerPlugin generated as Klatt
> internal plugin LargeIntegersPlugin generated as LargeIntegers
>
> There most likely are more that I missed.