On 5/24/05, Stefan Urbanek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Citát Jesse Ross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > And what it seems like you're suggesting is almost exactly what Squeak is: > > an image that runs on a platform specific VM: > > http://www.squeak.org/features/vm.html > > > > Yes! :-) I did not wanted to say it. But ... isn't Etoile in it's nature, from > the point of view of an user, something like Squeak, but closer to reality of > being used not only as academical toy? Do not take me wrong, it is taken very > very very roughly. Squeak has almost-ideal object environment model, where > Etoile provides only an illusion of such pure object environment. In this case > I think, that the illusion is enough as far as you can get your work done and > stay connected with reality (that is, with existing applications and tools). > > Squeak is very mature in its architecture, but I dare to say, that it is not > mature in tools for productive work. Not yet. Etoile does not have such > consistent and well developed object based core, but definitely has better > chance to provide usable tools. Why? In Etoile we can easily reuse what is > available until we have our own versions of tools. Also Etoile is meant to > cooperate with the outside world. > > I know that I am trying to compare uncomparable, but from user's point of view > you can see it as I have mentioned. As user, I am comparing an illusion to > real > object based environment. I would prefer the working illusion. > > I hope that I will not be misunderstood.
Yes.. I'm a bit uncomfortable with some of the thing we want to do, because, frankly, it really looks like Squeak, and using Squeak would probably be easier and more sane. And if we want an operating system, it's possible to run squeak as an os (well, some did ;-) and without even saying it's an os, just running a livecd with a barebone linux system that automatically launch squeak wouldn't be very complex :-) On the other hand, we've got this great framework (openstep), and really, really great development tools like Gorm, and they are available now -- that's definitely an edge. > > > If we wanted to show a demo for people, we would just need to include all > > the VMs compiled for whatever architecture and environment we planned on > > showing. > > That would be ideal, but later. I think from the beginning few platforms > should > be supported. What platforms? Well, look at major cross-platform software > providers (Acrobat Reader, Firefox (pure download, not packages in > distributions), Java Runtime Environment, OpenOffice, ...) and see for what > platforms they offer their software. Take the majority of them and support > only > those. There should be something about 3 or 4. That is manageable, if you > consider that at least 2 of them are linux flavours. Anyway, I think that most > of people will carry only windows + linux versions. > > Also an advantage of this "portable solution" is, that it puts almost no > barrier > on trying the Etoile, where full-featured OS is large barier. With portable > solution someone can start by tinkering around in his free time without > requiring to give up his work. Nice way for attracting people. Frankly, at the moment we should not divert our efforts with that. I think the best thing would be to focus *one* environment (preferably a livecd, but could be debian, or whatever..), and provide tgz for the courageous that want to use étoilé outside that "official" environment. > > Stefan Urbanek > > Before I start: Disclaimer: I respect and like Squeak, it is great > environment. > It is excellent place for evolving OO technologies and other OO environments > should get inspiration from it. Yes.. sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be a better idea to just ditch morphix, and create an OpenStep implementation (or OpenStep-like) for Squeak (well, perhaps on top of morphix for a start..) :-) But GNUstep is there already :) -- Nicolas Roard "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Arthur C. Clarke
