[Newbies] Pre-Getting started info: Unicode, utf8, large memory need

[Herbert König]

Hi Charles,

CH> 1)  How does one read&write utf8 files?

the FileStream class uses UTF8 files by default since some time. So if
you want non utf8 files (e.g. for speed reasons) you have to take
extra measures.

CH> 2)  Can strings by indexed by chars, even if they are unicode rather
CH> than ascii?

yes. See class WideString.

CH> 3)  What happens if you have more data than will fit into RAM?

use a database :-))

CH> (For 3 "use a database" is an acceptable answer, but I'm hoping for
CH> something involving automatic paging.)

There are object databases like Magma which make this less painful.
And OR mappers. Commercial products handle bigger than RAM images
(GemStone) of which I thought they would have a free version but can't
find it on their website.

CH> An additional, but much less urgent, question is "How does one use
CH> Squeak on multiple cores of a multi-core processor?"

There is an experiment "Hydra VM" which can run multiple images each
in their native thread. Squeak is a single OS thread and uses green
threads inside.

You might tell us, what you want to achieve. Personally I'd say start
small :-)


-- 
Cheers,

Herbert