[Newbies] Re: [] whileTrue: [] implementation

[nicolas cellier]

Bert Freudenberg <bert <at> freudenbergs.de> writes:

> 
> On 05.10.2011, at 00:24, nicolas cellier wrote:
> 
snip... gmane is a tyrant
> 
> Yes, but log(n) is still not good enough for loops that run forever. Like the
Morphic main loop. Or the idle process.
> 
> I don't think it's possible to emulate whileTrue without reaching for the meta
hammer. Interesting
> discussion though. Maybe a bit over the head of the average newbie ;)
> 
> - Bert -
> 

Ah yes of course, this is the essential case... And we cannot even know if the
loop is going to halt.
For the two specific cases you submitted, we could cheat by using another VM
magic and let the UI and idle process regenerate by forking themselves and
completely ignore any synchronisation requirement.
Or emulate tail call elimination by playing with thisContext>>sender:
But the sport is becoming a bit crooked. And we're getting far from initial
question.
It's already something to know that a jump bytecode solves these problems
efficiently.

Nicolas