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Hello guys,
Just a quick word to get some things straight because, quite frankly, I really
don't know where we're heading.
When Pharo started, the goal was to depart from Squeak and do a *major clean
up* of all the code, especially Morphic. The promise of a new, clean & lean
Smalltalk attracted a lot of people. And then...
I'm looking at the Pharo 7.0 image right now and I just don't get where we're
heading. Every Pharo release gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger. I don't
mind the environment getting bigger if it adds functionalities or new tools but
that's not quite the case here. LOTS of stuff is just duplicated.
Do we really need 2 code completion classes (NECController, NOCController) ?
Do we really need 2 system browsers (Nautilus, Calypso)? Do we really need 2
compilers (OpalCompiler, Compiler) ? Do we really need 8 delay schedulers
(DelayMicrosecondScheduler, DelayMillisecondScheduler, DelayNullScheduler,
DelayExperimentalSpinScheduler, DelaySpinScheduler, DelayTicklessScheduler,
DelayExperimentalCourageousScheduler, DelayExperimentalSemaphoreScheduler) ?
Do we really need 2 inspectors (GTInspector, EyeInspector) ? Do we really need
2 workspaces (GTPlayground, Workspace) ? Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera. I
could go on, and on, and on...
Pharo 5.1 had 5885 classes. Pharo 6.1 had 6481 classes. Pharo 7.0 alpha has
7612 classes. Can you see a trend?
Pharo 5.1 had 416 preference settings. Pharo 6.1 had 494 preference settings.
Pharo 7.0 alpha has 662 preference settings. Can you see a trend?
Pharo 5.1 had a 27.44 MB image. Pharo 6.1 had a 35.18 MB image. Pharo 7.0 alpha
has a 47.97 MB image. Can you see a trend?
Add to that the fact that Pharo is a nightmare when you want to port code.
Just with the 7.0 release, 61 classes will be deprecated (and lots more to come
if you search for the string "deprecated" into the code, most of the time
hidden in the comments of the soon-to-be-deprecated-in-Pharo-8-I-guess classes).
You have code that deals with sockets, should you use the old Socket classes or
convert everything to Zodiac? And why do we keep both "frameworks" in the image
? Pharo hasn't been backward compatible with "old socket classes" a looooooong
time ago anyway!
You have code that deals with dependencies, should you use the old dependents
mechanism or convert everything to announcements?
UI speaking, what framework should anyone use ? Athens? Something else?
You have code that deals with streams, should you use the old stream classes or
convert everything to Zinc ? And why do we keep both "frameworks" in the image
? Pharo hasn't been backward compatible with the old stream classes a
looooooong time ago anyway!
So what's the plan? For instance, should I keep using the Nautilus Browser or
I should switch to the Calypso browser and get used to it because Nautilus will
be deprecated? Or should I just don't care because a third system browser will
be added in Pharo 8 just because "it's cool, let's add this one too!" ?
Couldn't we just decide on what's "official" and what's a goodie or an external
optional tool/package/framework the same way all other Smalltalks do? If you
say Calypso is the official & supported browser, fine! Then just get Nautilus
out of the image, create a nice loadable package for it and if someone prefers
Nautilus, they'll just have to load it into the image, the same way VW has a
gazillion optional tools/packages/frameworks you can load from a parcel!
Whenever I get asked a simple question by a newbie like "Oh, which system
browser should I use?", quite frankly, I don't know what to answer. Did we
include Calypso to deprecate Nautilus later? Is Calypso just a proof of
concept? Is it just an optional tool? What about all those delay schedulers?
"I loaded this code from SqueakSource and it just doesn't work". Should I help
the guy to fix it or just tell him to convert all the code to the corresponding
framework in Pharo?
Perhaps a little bit of clarity and details about what's coming and what's the
plan would be beneficial to a lot of us.
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Benoît St-Jean
Yahoo! Messenger: bstjean
Twitter: @BenLeChialeux
Pinterest: benoitstjean
Instagram: Chef_Benito
IRC: lamneth
Blogue: endormitoire.wordpress.com
"A standpoint is an intellectual horizon of radius zero". (A. Einstein)
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