On Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 10:33:38AM -0600, Aaron J Reichow wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Nov 2000, Lex Spoon wrote:
> 
> > 	2. Make sure you have whatever OS-specific extensions are available. 
> > If you're talking about "scripting", quite frequently you want to access
> > OS-specific resources.  For Mac guys, there is AppleScript stuff in the
> > main image.  For Unix and maybe Microsoft guys, there is OSProcess.
> 
> Another concern of mine.  I'd be nice to have some consistency between
> platforms for how this OS specific stuff is done.  Perhaps another layer
> on-top of OS process, or just the implementation of all of the placeholder
> classes in OS Process. (OS Process only works with Unix/Linux)
> 
> Aaron

Umm, perhaps this would be a good time for me to ask for a bit of
assistance. In writing the OSProcess classes, I included placeholder
concrete classes for Win, Mac, etc.  Initially I had no intention
of implementing any of the Win/Mac stuff, but I would like to
make this cross platform in keeping with the rest of Squeak. And
I would be very unhappy if we needed to put another layer on top
of OSProcess; I would prefer to fix the design of OSProcess if I
did not get it right.

Do any of you have any feedback on OSProcess after loading it into
your Windows or Mac based Squeak images? Is anyone considering
implementing the Windows, Mac, OS/2, or Acorn parts? From a design
point of view, is the simple "Unix process" model adequate for
representing these concepts on other operating systems, or would
it be better (for example) to represent threads of execution as
distinct from the process data context? I did not want to add the
complexity of modeling OS threads unless it is really needed, but
some operating systems put a lot of emphasis on thread scheduling,
so perhaps it is better to add this as a basic part of the modeling
of an "OS Process".

I do not own a Mac, and I am rather short on time, knowledge, and
motivation when it comes to Windows. Therefore, any advice would
be welcome. Non-Unix implementations would be even more welcome.

Thanks,
Dave

p.s. Now that FFI is available, it should be much easier for someone
to implement the Mac or Windows versions of the UnixOSProcessPlugin
module. Actually, the separate plugin could be completely eliminated
by using FFI.