[Help-smalltalk] Re: [squeak-dev] Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!

[Julian Fitzell]

On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 12:54 PM, Paolo Bonzini <address@hidden> wrote:
>> We think that one of the most important reasons why we failed in 2009 is
>> that Google was looking for bigger communities that Squeak. This is why
>> this year we all go under the ESUG umbrella. We present ESUG as the
>> mentor organization and we cover ALL open-source Smalltalk dialects, not
>> only Squeak. Pharo, Smalltalk/X, GNU Smalltalk, Cuis..they are all
>> invited to participate. Also cross platform projects like Seaside,
>> AidaWeb, Magma, etc are welcome.
>
> Here is a list of ideas from me, all more or less involving cross-dialect
> pollination.  These are based on my preferences, from most to least
> preferred
>
> 1) GNU Smalltalk includes a refactored version of Swazoo that supports SCGI
> and is also faster in general.  Start from there and backport the changes to
> Squeak/Pharo.  Use Seaside's Grease cross-dialect compatibility layer to get
> rid of (most of) the Sport dependency.
>
> 2) Convert existing cross-platform projects to use Grease.  Demonstrate them
> using two-three dialects (VW, Squeak, GST).  Discuss possible extensions to
> Grease and implement them.  Document Grease extension based on the formalism
> of the ANSI standard.
>
> 3) I agreed with the FSF to relicense GNU Smalltalk's file system classes
> under MIT license.  Port them to at least two other dialects (Squeak/Pharo
> count as one).  Think of cool ways to use them.  Possibly work out how to
> integrate them into Grease and make Seaside use them.

I think I'd be willing to be a mentor for anything Grease- or
Seaside-related, though I might need to run that by my new employer
depending on what the project ends up being.

The above are good ideas. Also, off the top of my head:

+ Take the best parts of Seaside and Swazoo's HTTP protocol classes
and create an HTTP package that could be optionally loaded with Grease
and used by multiple projects.

+ Someone else suggested porting Monticello to Smalltalk/X. The same
could be done for VA Smalltalk and a full port with UI for VW.

+ I'd really love to see a single RefactoringBrowser package that
could be loaded on all the platforms using Grease. I have no idea if
there's any chance of buy-in from the vendors on that one; maybe it
would need a new class name prefix so it could be loaded in
parallel...

Those are just random mind wanderings...

Julian