| |
| |
| |
| |
Not much. The name is official, and the most recent version runs bit-identical on more platforms than most other software.
Seriously, there is something here that touches on Squeak philosophy. Official standards and product support are the enemies of change. Next to universal access, malleability is the prime figure of merit for Squeak. It is our intent for Squeak to evolve.
I once read a derogatory reference in comp.lang.smalltalk to Squeak's dependence on the whimsical enthusiasm of a couple of wizards. Who could ever make product plans upon such shifting sands?
The answer is simple: A Squeak release includes everything about itself, and probably 25% of the folks on the Squeak Mailing Lists could maintain the any given version single-handedly for the next 20 years.
The same has been said about Larry "Perl" Wall or Guido "Python" von Rossum or Jon "TCL" Ousterhout getting hit by their respective busses.
Funny how that doesn't seem to stop millions of people from using this free software for mission-critical applications all over the world.
The answer is simple: A Squeak release includes everything about itself ... It's having control over your destiny.
Exactly! Open/free software is power over your own destiny. It's only scary to people that are accustomed/programmed to calling an 800/900 number every time they can't figure out where the "any" key is.
[As Mark Guzdial says, at the end of World's smallest drawing program
I cringe whenever I must use poorly-documented probably-buggy proprietary vendor products. I'm too used to Perl and GNU Emacs, I guess. – RandalSchwartz