On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 08:14:37PM +0100, Simon Guest wrote:
> At Mon, 2 Oct 2006 19:30:48 -0400,
> David T Lewis wrote:
> > In order to have a current version of OSPP for Windows, you will
> > need to build the plugin *and* a new VM using VMMaker. You will
> > also need to disable (or otherwise work around) the functions in
> > /platforms/win32/vm/sqWin32HandleTable.h in order for OSPP to work
> > properly. You need to have both the OSPP plugin and the modified VM
> > with the handle table disabled in order to have a working OSPP for
> > Windows.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Dave,
> 
> Thanks for the detailed reply.  I did think I was going to have to
> work this hard to get it working, but then Mathieu offered me a copy
> of his Win32OSProcessPlugin.dll which works just fine with the Squeak
> 3.8 VM I have been using to run the Squeak 3.9 image.
> 
> So I'm up and running (thanks Mathieu), but remain a little daunted at
> what I would have to do to make this myself.

Well, let me offer a word of encouragement on that front. It might seem
a bit of a hassle to set up Squeak with VMMaker, then install whatever
compilers and libraries you need for your operating system. But it's
an interesting exercise and really all that terribly difficult if you
enjoy tinkering with these things.

But the real clincher is this: Can you think of any other computing
environment in which you could do this? You can start out with EToys
and other higher level ideas, and you can drill all the way down to
the bits wiggling around in the VM. Along the way, you can run the
Squeak interpreter inside of itself (InterpreterSimulator), and you
can ask the Squeak VM to convert itself into C source code to be
compiled into an executable Squeak VM (VMMaker). You have the complete
source code for your VM (in both C and Smalltalk), and you can run
it under your favorite debugger (such as gcc) to watch the execution
of the Squeak VM which might happen to be running a Squeak debugger
that shows you the execution of your Smalltalk code in the image,
which might itself be running some EToys script. 

So yes it's a hassle to get some of the lower level stuff assembled.
But it is an entertaining exercise, and it's hard for me to imagine
a more "open" environment for playing with everything from high level
abstractions all the way down to the synapses and neurons.

Dave