Hi Igor,
Please, let's keep the discussion at the level of arguments.
The original reasons for developing RPackage were:
- to offer a first class package object in the image and to remove the category-string-based-solution, and
- to get rid of Monticello-magic-mapping, and potentially offer the option of adding tags as an orthogonal mechanism.
At this moment, we have RPackage mapped one-to-one to categories, but the core implementation still relies on categories. So, at the very least, we should find a way to remove categories and directly rely on RPackage.
The Monticello mapping is there only for historical reasons. To eliminate it we need a strategy. For this, I see two options:
- either we go with simply removing categories altogether and just relying on RPackages with 1-to-1 mappings to Monticello packages,
- we introduce another mechanism (such as tags) that allows us to map categories on this.
Perhaps there are other options, too.
Btw, I thought that in Pharo, backward compatibility is secondary to sound engineering :).
Cheers,
Doru