James Robertson asks a leading question about Store Bundles in VisualWorks. It's an interesting question, and I hope James will forgive me, but I think it's a bit off the mark. It's like asking me if I use the bathroom in that used house I bought a year or two ago. Duh, of course, I use it. But that doesn't mean that I bought the house for its bathroom, or that I like the bathroom. That given a chance I wouldn't gladly have what my neighbor has a for a commode at his place. There are (in my opinion) more telling questions to ask about the Bundle construct found in VisualWorks. Questions like these:

• Do you use Bundles primarily to get the code browser to group packages logically together?
• Do you use Bundles primarily to give you a mechanism of "versioning a set of packages together."
• Do you use Bundles primarily as a way to make loading a group of associated packages easier?
• Have you used Envy? If so, do you consider a Bundle an adequate replacement for an Envy Config map (open or realeased)?
• Have you used Team/V? If so, do you consider a Bundle an adequate replacement for Clusters?
• Do you take advantage of the fact that Bundles can have the same names as Packages? Do you take advantage of the behavior that the default prerequisite type (#any) will give preference to a bundle over a package, when it encounters two by the same name?
• Do you take advantage of the fact that when you put a Package in a Bundle, it will suppress things like post load actions?
• Do you feel that Bundle "load order lists" (having to get the contents of the packages right, and the packages in the right order) brings a level of organization to your code that you were lacking before?
• As you consider your peers in other technologies (Ruby, Python, Debian, C, .Net, etc.) do you find analogs for a system that uses something like both Bundles and Packages?
• When you teach a college grad, or that friend who's been listening to you tell him about VisualWorks for all these years, do you brag about Bundles to him, and show him all the cool things you can do with them?
• If you use Bundles, but are not enamored with them, how much pain are you willing to go through to get to a better place?
• Do you consider the presence of Bundles something that helps close the deal between a VisualWorks implementation and a competing technology (or another Smalltalk flavor)?

The last is my favorite.

I use Bundles, it's part of the legacy of the VisualWorks system. So I work within those constraints. But asking me whether I use them, doesn't really tell much about them.