[Newcompiler] Implementing bytecode for closur

[Marcus Denker]

On 26.04.2007, at 14:04, Mathieu Suen wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have implement a bytecode to push the closure environment.
> So instead of this peace of bytecode:
>
> pushThisContext
> pushConstant: 5
> send: privGetInstVar:
>
> You get:
>
> pushClosureEnvironment
>
> I have run benchmark and it result that the system was running 16%  
> faster.
>

Very cool :-)

> I think we should use other bytecode like pushTemp/storeTamp which  
> would store/pop variable directly from the closure environment.
> At the end we should be close to the performance to the NewCompiler  
> without closure performance.


The other thing that makes the code slower is "closure activiation",  
that is, just doing a "aBlockClosure value".

Closures in the ClosureCompiler are objects that reference code (a  
compiledMethod) and the environment. Value is this:

value
	"Evaluate the block with no args. Fail if the block expects other  
than 0 arguments."

	^ environment executeMethod: method


#executeMethod: itself is now a primitive, but even then, executing  
the #value needs a complete activiation of the #value
method, and then the method that has the code of the block itself is  
a method activation.

So right now, we have two complete method activiations for one #value  
on a block.

We can easily cut that down to one by making the #value on block a  
primitive. Then block activiation would be as fast
as calling a method.

In Squeak right now, it is faster, as there is a scheme to be able to  
execute block-contexts which do not require a full activation.

So, we should first make the #value methods  primitives and after  
that think about what to for not needing full activation for all blocks,
or maybe see if activation in general could be speed up.

	Marcus
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