Hi Dan,

    You wrote:

> I think it might be nice to spend a bit of time strategizing about
Strongtalk
> and Squeak (if we can wait until then).

    You also had written:

> >I just caught this on the Strongtalk mailing list, and thought that
> >it may be of interest to some of you.
> > See  http://www.strongtalk.org  for more info.
>
> This could be the most important thing to happen in the Smalltalk
> community in years.  The Strongtalk VM was faster than any other
> when it was written, and I believe it is still comparable to the
> VisualWorks VM (it would be fun to test).
>
> One could ignore the type system and simply port all of Squeak
> into Strongtalk

    More conservatively, how hard would it be to port Pavel's
    KernelImage to StrongTalk and turn it into S3 (tm)
    (Strong Small Squeak ;-)

> (of course there are parts of Strongtalk that are better
> and should not be lost ;-).  Then, or in the process, if one did a
> tasteful job of supporting the types optionally (ie a browser switch
> to show them or not), it would be the first opportunity to have the
> best of both worlds in Smalltalk -- or anywhere for that matter.
>
> The Strongtalk VM is organized as a high-performance interpreter (2-3
> times Squeak speed, I believe), and an inlining JIT that achieves
> roughly 6x Squeak speed.  Gilad reports the following on his Intel
> Mac:
>
> Squeak 3.8    345,712,356 bytecodes/sec;  7,855,215 sends/sec
> Strongtalk  1,805,996,472 bytecodes/sec; 48,075,256 sends/sec
>
> My mind reels at these numbers.  Moreover Robert Griesemer had a
> design for an even better JIT and, if this became an active project,
> I bet he would help out.
>

> Strongtalk is set up to support native windows, and it probably makes
> sense to keep it that way, but this would be a parting of the ways
> from Squeak's run-anywhere agility. It would be nice to introduce a
> layer in the UI with a separate bitblt-only implementation to retain
> extreme portability.
>

    and once there is a strong and small Squeak with an even better JIT,
    supports for various Squeak's GUIs would have a better chance of
    becoming a reality.

    Isn't it a concensus, by now, that it is much more easier
    to understand and work with a smaller and robust code base.


> The VM is not simple -- it is a large body of C++ code.
> However it was written by smart people and is well-organized
> (I haven't looked through it carefully).  It probably has some bugs,

    Some mechanism to support Squeak' named primitives ?

    It is so excited to think of S3 with Assember, Compiler..., and of
    course, Interpreter, ObjectMemory and Primitive plugins ;-).


> and it may take some archaeology to get it all to compile with the
> latest tools.
>

    I think VS6 can accept VS5 project file, from there it can get
    straight to VS8 (aka VS 2005).

    The C++ codes can be compiled as managed code and, for now,
    the object files from the Turbo assembly code can be bundled into
    one classic dll and used through platform invoke mechanism
    (or the machine code can be coded into some Forth words ;-).

> That said, I think there would be a tremendous reward for doing the
> work.

    Definitely !

    And a clean slate for licensing issue as a bonus ?

    There is also news that David Griswold will port StrongTalk VM
    to run Squeak byte codes. This would be great.

    It doesn't hurt to have some fresh air and healthy competitions ;-)

    The children will have more than one Squeak to choose from.

    It is horrible to think of a mess of half cooked, rotten,
    prototyped bits and bites being thrusted down the throats
    of the kids !!!

> The ironman engineering of Strongtalk seems a perfect match

> for Squeak's cheerful insouciance.
>

    Hmm, what was the expression ?

    Ahh,  is it "straight from the Horse's Mouth" ;-)


    Cheers,

    SmallSqueak

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dan Ingalls" <Dan at SqueakLand.org>
Newsgroups: gmane.comp.lang.smalltalk.squeak.general
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 1:29 AM
Subject: Re: Squackers, Tenth-Birthday-of-Squeak edition


> Craig wrote...
>
> >     For October, Squackers[1] will celebrate Squeak's tenth birthday at
> >Dan Ingalls's place near Santa Cruz, CA, USA, on Saturday the
> >seventh[2]. We'll start by hanging out at the beach in the afternoon,
> >then head up to Dan's for a barbeque and further merriment (and we might
> >be found on the Squeak IRC channel around 7pm GMT-7, see [3]).
> >
> >     If you think you'll be able to make it, please let me know! And
> >please forward this message to others you think might be interested.
> >
> >
> >     take care,
> >
> >-C
>
> Folks -
>
> I think it might be nice to spend a bit of time strategizing about
Strongtalk and Squeak (if we can wait until then).  Also I might talk a bit
about my whacky project to do a self-supporting kernel in JavaScript, and if
Ian can make it he might talk about his new VM that should run both
JavaScript and Squeak, and what's cool about that.
>
> If you are coming, please drop me a line so I can explain about parking
and other silly details.
>
> - Dan
>
> >
> >[1]  Squackers is a group of Squeak hackers in the San Francisco bay
> >     area who get together once a month to have a good time and show off
> >     what they're up to with Squeak (including learning it).
> >
> >[2]  ...the October Saturday nearest the traditional birthday of 1
> >     October, the date Dan announced Squeak to comp.lang.smalltalk (see
> >     http://tinyurl.com/gqdhv for the original message).
> >
> >[3]  http://users.squeak.org/irc
> >
> >--
> >Craig Latta
> >http://netjam.org/resume
>
>
>