> You'll love this:
>  >>>>>>>>>>>
> patchInterpGCCPPC: fileName
>     "Interpreter patchInterpGCCPPC: 'Squeak copy 1'"
>     "This will patch out the unneccesary range check (a compare
>      and branch) in the inner interpreter dispatch loop. for the PPC
> version of the GCC compiled
>     version of Squeak under MPW"
> <<<<<<<<<
>
> I found this while hunting for a problem with my changes where what is
> apparently a free block was set to a totally wild value...

Oh, actually I find the above totally reasonable :-) And most of the
gnuified VMs do the same through somewhat different means. It would only be
a problem if -say- #interpret would have a hack that results in an omitted
range check on one platform but lead to double or triple range checks on
others.

Again, platform-specific optimizations are good! They just have to be done
in a way which doesn't harm others.

Cheers,
  - Andreas