On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 1:10 PM, Michael Forster <[email protected]>wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 4:47 AM, Marcus Denker <[email protected]> > wrote: > [...] > > Yes, using the old version of Pharo that you used when > > you implemented them. > > Like MacOS 9 programs run on MacOS 9. > > > > If you want to run your MacOS 9 Program on MacOSX, there > > is for a time an emulator, and for a time some source compatibility. > > But in the end, the only option is to port. > > > > There is no magic. > > > > You can select between > > > > -> Inventing the Future > > -> Be compatible to the Past at any cost. > > > > If what you have in the Past is valuable, selecting the second option > > makes sense. (IBM, Microsoft). If not, then it's idiotic. > > > > We will improve this a bit in the future, but this is research, so no > promises. > > > So, we mission-critical users should probably disregard the mission > statement on the web page misleading: > > "... By providing a stable and small core system, excellent dev > tools, and maintained releases, Pharo is an attractive platform > to build and deploy mission critical Smalltalk applications." > > It doesn't say anything about backward compatibility. As marcus said, we want a stable system. That means it is stable. Few bugs, robust, etc. If you use that system for the next 5 years, it will continue to be stable. You understood stable in the sense that it won't change among releases? if so, yes, the text is misleading and we need to fix it. > I'm sorry that I don't have time right at the moment to address this > properly, because I do respect the efforts of the Pharo developers, I > fully appreciate the challenges of a FOSS project, and I like some of > the results I've seen (very nice developer UI features, movement > towards announcements, the collaboractive book, and so on). I am > interested, only, in offering constructive criticism, so please don't > mistake my tone. > Please, go ahead. And don't mistake my tone neither. I am just nicely discussing :) > > The short version of my concern is this: As a "mission critical" user > of Pharo, I will trade backward compatibility for improvement, if, as > you say, you provide "maintained releases". Those last two words are > the most important and incur a great burden of responsibility. I > don't think the Pharo project has fully considered the responsibility > of using those two words. > We did Pharo 1.1.1 and we are planning Pharo 1.2.2. And they are "maintained releases". Of course, don't expect now for example, a maintained release in Pharo 1.0. At least not from me. This is open-source. Nobody pays. Resources are limited. So...if you need something in Pharo.1.0 NOW, you take the image and you integrate the fix by yourself. Or you can kindly ask. Crucial bugs are always included and integrated. > > The short version of my recommendation is this: Have a look at the > FreeBSD release engineering process. how many developers are working in FreeBSD? how much money they receive? It is not that we do this because we want. Resources are limited and we need to use where we think they are used better. > They break backward > compatibility all the time, but, if I have a mission critical > application running on 4.5, I will still get essential bug and > security fixes for a few years, and I can run trials with 8.0 on my > other servers. If people ask us, we are not going to do a new release for Pharo 1.0. However, if someone comes and say, "hey, please, can you consider create a Pharo 1.0.XX with the fixed issues A B C F R". Sure we can do it. What you should not expect is: - new developments to be included in old version - non critical bugs to be included in old versions - that you won't have to change anything in your apps in order to upgrade to a new pharo version > Moreover, they have an updated documented roadmap that > I can look at to determine that I should continue to run 4.5 on that > one box while testing 8.0 on the others. > We don't need to exaggerate. Pharo position about this topic was from the VERY beginning. In fact, it was created just because of that. Now...it is already like 3 years and 3 big releases. I am not aware of someone who needs to migrate and couldn't. So...it is working fine for the moment. > > > Best regards, > > Mike > > -- Mariano http://marianopeck.wordpress.com
