Smalltalk/JVM Questions and Answers
Jason Jones
jsj at ksc.com
Mon Apr 4 20:52:07 UTC 2005
All,
We received many emails concerning open sourcing St/JVM. Below you will
find answers to some of the more common questions we received.
Jason Jones
jsj at ksc.com
----------------------------------
Q: Which dialect of Smalltalk would it support? VisualAge? VisualWorks?
A: Syntactically it is somewhere between VA, VW and Squeak. It supports
some syntax that is unique to each of these.
Q: Is the point of open-sourcing the project so that the Smalltalk community
would provide the code for each dialect to be compatible with Mission's
compiler?
A: That the Smalltalk and Java Communities would improve, integrate and
extend the existing code base
Q: Do we get unboxed floats in Smalltalk/JVM?
A: Not currently, but you can call Java code that uses unboxed floats.
Smalltalk/JVM floats are real objects that actually understand math :-)
Q: One question though: what class libraries will be available other than
the standard Smalltalk ones?
A: The current library is limited
Q: I was wondering if you have a demo or trial version of your Smalltalk to
Java JVM product?
A: Yes we will make the demo available first
Q: Sounds interesting, I'd like to know more about how the development
environment calls the java code during development.
A: Natively, no additional overhead for message sends
Q: Does Smalltalk/JVM allow you to convert Smalltalk code into Java code?
A: No, the purpose of Smalltalk/JVM is to promote the use of Smalltalk, not
provide code migration.
Q: My main interest now would be related to how this project would enable
Smalltalk to access Java classes and frameworks.
A: Native access to Java code
Q: In order to make it accessible you would need to release it with a
license such as Eclipse or Apache otherwise it won't get much attention.
A: We appreciate the suggestion; we will look at the Eclipse/Apache/LGPL
model
Q: Any chance this will work in J2ME?
A: It produces 100% JVM compatible class files, so it should work. We would
appreciate feedback if it does not.
Q: Why run Smalltalk on Java instead of running Java in the Smalltalk
environment.
A: There is a JVM on almost every computer (mostly free). Eliminates single
VM supplier problem. Leverages huge investment in the Java environment
Q: Why not create an Eclipse plug-in for Smalltalk/JVM?
A: That would be a great idea
Jason Jones
Knowledge Systems Corporation
Smalltalk Industry Council
919.789.8549 x.21
www.ksc.com
www.stic.org
www.smalltalksolutions.com
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