On 7-Jul-08, at 7:49 PM, Andreas Raab wrote:
>
>
> Start with the interpreter simulator and a (literally) empty object  
> memory.
[snip]
Well as Craig mentioned this is pretty much what he was talking about  
in 03 or so. And Alejandro was of course doing his Fenix project where  
the build happened in 'live' memory. And I did it *by hand*  - in  
*hex* - in 1987 for a suite of unit tests for an ARM assembler VM.
It's a very plausible idea. I think doing it in a simulated OM is  
better than the Fenix technique precisely because it is totally  
contained and no leaks are possible. Craig's visualisation work  
includes some tools for handling images in simulatio that ought to  
help. It ought to be possible to build the image foetus and analyse it  
remotely before ever risking running the simulator stepper. And of  
course it is all repeatable until you get it right, at which point you  
snapshot.

> Now we can create new compiled methods in the new image as long as  
> they don't refer to any globals.
Why not build a globals dictionary into the new image? Surely it  
wouldn't add much to the effort? You've already had to add Arrays, go  
one step further for Dictionary. Pool vars would work with our 'new'  
pool dictionary mechanism (how many years ago was that?). Maybe  
globals can be implemented in a similar fashion.

>
> Anyone interested?
Duh. Of course.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
A hacker does for love what others would not do for money.