Marten’s VA Smalltalk wish list

Marten Feldtmann posted his personal wishlist for VA Smalltalk for 2011. There’s not much to add here, and I spotted a few wishes that I’d regard as high priority as well. So maybe if I help wishing, the list gets shorter around this time next year:

I would like to get/have

* that with 8.03 we get a pretty stable and up to date Seaside implementation with easy packaging management
* to get an up to date version of Glorp
* to get updated database drivers offering newest features of supported database products
* to get support for at least one open database (eh – what about Postgresql ?).
* to get support for LTS versions of Ubuntu. Actually nothing had to be done – at least I have no see major problems – to make VA runnable under 10.10. But the problems with the latest LTS version (10.04.1) are not going to be solved any more.
* I would like to see a good Linux client, which is a pleasure to work with and does not look like a product somewhere located between Englebart and Smalltalk’72.
* a solution to these problems with source code management among different clients with different code pages
* to have more UTF-8 support
* a new management/developer process making it possible to get earlier access to new versions of Glorp and Seaside – and no need for waiting for next releases in these cases
* even for the most important platform (Windows) we have a complicating installation process
* the – even from the community wished – long awaited open bug databases (Frankfurt !)
* enhanced GUI support for Windows and Linux
* support for Macintosh
* support for better IPCs: either with .NET code, Java code or C
* support for better and asynchronous call-in into Smalltalk independent from the GUI thread
* support for multi-processors and/or multi-threading
* support for interfaces within the Smalltalk language or system.
* much brighter activities at conferences and a better support (activity) via Instantiations forum
* a way for project control with external resources (bitmaps), automatically build management
* easier way of building runtime images (headless and headfull)
* some kind if Intellisense when typing code
* a much better kind of GUI, which make source code browsing within the system even more productive
* enhancements in the GUI builder part: do not store things in the repository, but as source code … make it even more powerful
….

Some of Marten’s wishes are on the agenda for 8.0.3 or the release after that (8.5?). So chances are Marten and I will be happy boys next year 😉
I think Instantiations has come a long way in terms of public appearance. And I am optimistic and full of hope at the same time that the hiring of a new staff member for the development team will help make (at least some) dreams come true…

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