RE: [Squeak-VMdev] RFC: Default VM directory

[Andreas R. <And...@gm...>]

Lex,

> Just to toss out, Bert's comment about scripts is a real 
> issue.  I tried to use Squeak in a scripting situation on
> Windows once, and got frustrated because of it not inheriting
> the worknig directory.  I had to fully specify every filename.
> (Another nuisance was that it didn't block when called
> from a batch script, but instead forked into its own
> independent thread.)

It would if you'd use a VM which is compiled as "console application".
Windows apps have this weird thing that they are either console apps (in
which case they *do* inherit the CWD from the command line and block the
invoking thread by default) or GUI apps (in which case you get all this
wonderful behavior described before). I tried to figure out whether
someone is starting Squeak from the command line or not (e.g., to make
this behavior transparent) but apparently there is no way to figure this
out. "GUI apps" are simply forked off. "Console apps" on the other hand
open one of these really ugly command line prompts whenever you start
them by double clicking (and I couldn't find a way of getting rid of
those fast enough to make it unnoticable to the user). I could compile a
console VM in addition to the GUI VM but sofar there hasn't been a lot
of interest in this.

> So, I would vote that we in fact use whatever Windows gives you.  In a
> drag-and-drop situation, you are unlikely to care what "FileDirectory
> default" is, anyway, are you?

I am. That was exactly the reason why I changed it.

> Regarding the sources file, I actually find it pretty annoying to have
> this stupid symlink in every directory I run Squeak from.  It would be
> really nice if the image could query for a sources directory and then
> use that.  On Unix that would be some system location (though probably
> overide-able by an environment variable).  For Windows, I don't know
> which would make more sense: VM or image.  I would guess VM, just
> because Windows programs tend to have a single directory tree holding
> all of the standard files.

Squeak is already looking in the VM directory to find the source files.
I don't know if that's any different on Unix but I have all the .sources
in the VM directory and hardly ever copy anything around.

Cheers,
  - Andreas