migrate sources to metadataless format?

[estebanlm]

is not just that is impossible to work with iceberg, is also very annoying to work on branches :P
Can't we migrate to metadataless format?
I guess is available in all platforms now?

[jecisc]

The problem is that currently, it's possible to update Metacello in very old Pharo because they can manage metadata full file tree.

If Metacello move to a Metadataless format we need to update the update scripts to maybe install the last metadatafull version of Metacello and only then the stable version of Metacello.

[estebanlm]

in a point, we need to move forward.
how many versions we will support back?
I understand we need to keep support for a fair amount of them... but we cannot have eternal backward compatibility.

And the problem with the metadataful format is that, in practice, is a one man work (yes, there is the merge driver, and it helps a lot, but well... )

[krono]

Please note that Metacello is a project that lives beyond the recent Pharo versions. What I mean is that, not only older Pharo versions might have a problem with metadataless, but also maybe a GemStone or a Squeak that are not the most recent. Going forward is cool, but playing nice with all kids on the playground is also cool (from the Metacello implementations point of view).

Maybe we can find a way to have metadataless with all players.

That being said, it is probably hard to maintain proper history. and Just dropping the commit history seems a bit sad to me.

[estebanlm]

But this is a problem also for squeak and gemstone: you cannot properly work on branches with metadataful. And as far as I know metacello already can work with metadataless in most versions.

Now, the history problem: is not a problem, there are tools to migrate sources with history. But yes, history resides in other place than a text file committed with each version. And yes, you need tooling if you want to use it from your dialect (Pharo already has them, but that's because we decided to "take the bull by the horns" and develop them).

[jecisc]

Hi @krono

I think it's one of the reasons why it's with the "question" tag.

Can you explain the current situation of Metacello for squeak please?

Personally, I don't know much about Squeak so what is the current stable version? Would it be able to update Metacello if it was metadataless? If yes, for how many past versions of Squeak is it possible?

If the last versions are able to update Metacello if it was metadataless and if we are able to produce a script to first update to the latest metadatafull version then to the current metadataless version it could work no?