Your comments about not having to intentionally manage writes of objects
indicates that you believe that the read/write/erase characteristics of
flash memory are similar to  conventional memory.  Cells in flash memory
can't be re-written without first erasing.  Erasure occurs on block
boundaries.  You can only erase a block a certain number of times (typically
in excess of 100,000).  I find it convenient to think of flash as a very
fast replacement for disk drives.  Compared to disks, it has very fast read
access, especially for random reads, but the block structured erase/write
protocol look more like a disk drive.  See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory for more.

Object persistence managers like GemStone, Glorp, etc, are still needed, but
flash memory will definitely change the way we think about persistent
storage.

-david

PS - I did a quick search to see if there have been any breakthroughs in
flash other than price/density and didn't find anything.  If anybody has
more info on this, please pass it along.

On Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 5:50 PM, John M McIntosh <
johnmci at smalltalkconsulting.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 3:24 PM, Louis LaBrunda
> <Lou at keystone-software.com> wrote:
> > A Smalltalk program running on a server with a large amount of flash
> memory,
> > could run without the need for another form of database.  The flash
> memory would
> > be in addition to the normal memory, with both available as RAM.  The
> flash
> > memory would not look like a hard disk replacement.
>
> You might want to do some reading about GemStone
> http://www.gemstone.com/products/smalltalk/
>
> It does much of what you discuss. They have a free version so you can
> explore more how it behaves.
>
>
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