Status of Slate implementation and documentation.

[RE01 Rice Brian T. EM2]

I have a lot of explanations and conceptual developments to document, and I
was hoping for a while to use the Diktuon web-database that was being
developed. Because of server problems, it seems I must move it to Bespin, so
perhaps simply integrating it with the Zope Review system is the goal now.
(Tril, input on this?)

Speaking of the Zope Review system, I'd like to know whether Tril considers
this well-developed enough for full-scale use and replacing of the existing
Tunes Review Subproject, apart from considerations of "whether people will
use it" (since I know that I, being stuck on the ship for a while, could
devote time to the areas appropriate to what I work on). If Tril and the
rest of the Tunes members consider it ready, then I'd like to see some
effort put into the public aspect of the Tunes Review site, such as
announcement, invitations for editors, re-configuring the web server to have
tunes.org/Review/ point to the Zope database, et cetera.

As for Slate implementation, Lee Salzman was working on a "pidgin" dialect
of Slate (Self-style meta-objects, in other words), but seems to have come
upon some problems which he hasn't detailed (and which are not related to
the actual coding process). So I've asked him to publish his current results
and I'd also like him to outline the rest of the planned implementation in
comments (Lee, I know you'll read this... please don't drag your feet on
this). So in any case, I'll deliver on my promise to update the
documentation and explanation and plans, and Tril and a few others have
expressed willingness to update the Lisp implementation of Slate. Let's act
on that for now, and consider Lee's plans for the long-run. Lee was also
working on a compiler framework for a dynamically-optimizing interactive
system for Slate (much like Self, only coded to support the meta-object
protocol that is currently being developed), and was doing a lot of research
in that direction. I'd like him to publish any results he has at this point
for the common benefit.

As always, comments are welcome and invited. Tonight begins my new efforts
to keep Tunesers informed and involved in Slate development, which should
interact of course with the development of documentation, tutorials, and
implementations.

Thanks,
~