[Cuis] I need an idea. I know you have some. Give.

[Casey Ransberger]

Hi Jerry,

I miss DabbleDB too, in part because it was an obvious goto whenever anyone
would ask me, "so what is Smalltalk good for?"

It would be cool if Twitter open sourced it, but pretty hard to replicate
without being able to poke at the original to see how it would behave.
Dabble did lots of very, very clever things around recognizing patterns in
input, etc.

You're right in that it would potentially have a broader audience than just
the Smalltalk community. It's something I'd love to see, but the bottom
line for me is: I doubt I can replicate it without having a reference point.

But that doesn't necessarily have to mean a full stop. There's a site
called change.org which can be used to at least make the relevant parties
aware that there is a demand. It's kind of like a KickStarter for petitions.

Here's an example:

http://www.change.org/petitions/renew-tron-uprising

I don't think I have Avi's current email address, but if anyone does, it
might make sense to reach out to him as well.

On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 1:07 PM, Jerry Bell <jdbellomm at gmail.com> wrote:

> I would love to see an open source DabbleDB clone.
>
> DabbleDB was a really wonderful and unique system which was sadly lost
> when Twitter bought the company and shut the service down.   It was a
> great example of really powerful software built in Squeak.
>
> It >might< be possible to get Twitter to open source the original
> code.  My understanding is that the company was purchased more for
> their Trendly product and for the expertise of the Smallthought
> Systems team in general.   Regardless, there is enough public
> information out there from Avi to understand the basic architecture of
> the system, and enough demos to understand how the user interface
> worked.   IMHO, it's a fascinating architecture and well worth
> learning about whether you actually pursue the project or not.
>
> It would be an ambitious project.   But this sort of project, with
> potential appeal to a much larger group than just Squeak developers,
> might be more successful at raising funding on KickStarter than an
> enhancement to Squeak itself.
>
> -Jerry
>
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 12:48 AM, Casey Ransberger
> <casey.obrien.r at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello Squeakers!
> >
> > My job search is turning up dead ends, hurry up and wait, and
> unfathomably boring prospects.
> >
> > Screw all that! I want to do something cool.
> >
> > I'm thinking about doing a KickStarter, but almost all of my ideas are
> either a) stuff no one else wants which only I could possibly think would
> be cool, or b) overly ambitious. The words Andreas used to describe my last
> idea: "a bit grandiose." Gift for understatement at times.
> >
> > So I'm looking for something which could be completed by one or two
> geeks in six months to a year, which people actually want, to be
> implemented (at least in part) using Squeak, and to be released at the end
> under the MIT license.
> >
> > I've floored my expenses, so I can make my own labor (relatively, for a
> guy living in Seattle) very cheap. By floored, I mean the room I sleep in
> isn't even tall enough to stand up in -- I do not presently meet the
> definition of a free-range chicken -- and I've disconnected my cellular
> service. I want to be an efficient engine for getting things that matter to
> me and other people done, rather than go on being some tool used to ship
> lucrative enterprise crapware.
> >
> > So here's the $x question: what do you want me to do? I have a Raspberry
> Pi on order, so bonus points if you can work that in somehow.
> >
> > The person with the best (realistic) idea will be credited for it.
> >
> > Inspire me! And thanks for reading all the way down to the bottom of
> this message.
> >
> > Casey
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Cuis mailing list
> > Cuis at jvuletich.org
> > http://jvuletich.org/mailman/listinfo/cuis_jvuletich.org
>
> _______________________________________________
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>



-- 
Casey Ransberger
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