[squeak-dev] Re: Fwd: Chrome and V8

Andreas Raab andreas.raab at gmx.de
Tue Sep 2 21:24:52 UTC 2008


Stephen Pair wrote:
> The lively kernel seems to be pretty snappy on it.

It is also an excellent test for the multi-process architecture of 
Chrome. The task manager reports the load quite nicely (though it is 
*very* hard to find; you need to right-click on an empty piece of the 
title bar i.e., not in one of the tabs and then you'll find it).

Cheers,
   - Andreas

> 
> - Stephen
> 
> On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 5:06 PM, Andreas Raab <andreas.raab at gmx.de 
> <mailto:andreas.raab at gmx.de>> wrote:
> 
>     Ron Welch wrote:
> 
> 
>         The source code is available at: http://code.google.com/p/v8/
> 
> 
>     I'm looking at it now ;-) Talk about a game-changer...
> 
>     Cheers,
>      - Andreas
> 
> 
>         On 9/2/08 3:23 PM, "John M McIntosh"
>         <johnmci at smalltalkconsulting.com
>         <mailto:johnmci at smalltalkconsulting.com>> wrote:
> 
>            ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>            From: Dave Griswold <David.Griswold.256 at gmail.com
>         <mailto:David.Griswold.256 at gmail.com>>
>            Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 12:14:32 -0700 (PDT)
>            Subject: Chrome and V8
>            To: Strongtalk-general <strongtalk-general at googlegroups.com
>         <mailto:strongtalk-general at googlegroups.com>>
> 
> 
>            Hi everyone,
> 
>            It's been a while, but now that Google has announced Chrome
>         and V8, I
>            can finally make a little clearer a major reason why I
>         haven't been
>            pushing Strongtalk development for quite a while: Chrome's new
>            JavaScript engine V8.
> 
>            The V8 development team has multiple members of the original
>            Animorphic team; it is headed by Lars Bak, who was the
>         technical lead
>            for both Strongtalk and the HotSpot Java VM (as well as a huge
>            contributor to the original Self VM).   I think that you will
>         find
>            that V8 has a lot of the creamy goodness of the Strongtalk
>         and Self
>            VMs, with many big architectural improvements:
> 
>            * open source
>            * will run (eventually) on Windows, Linux, and Mac
>            * dynamically JITs to native code
>            * can run completely independently from the browser
>            * generates hidden classes behind the scenes, since
>         javascript doesn't
>            have them (very reminiscent of the 'maps' used in the Self VM).
>            * is multi-threaded from the ground up, with the ability to
>         share VM
>            overhead between different OS processes.
>            * has even smaller object headers than in Strongtalk, making
>         small
>            object overhead even smaller
>            * kick-ass compacting, non-conservative garbage collector
> 
>            The really big deal here is the fundamentally multi-threaded,
>         multi-
>            process nature of the VM.  That is something that we don't
>         really have
>            the ability to just hack into the Strongtalk VM; it would involve
>            practically an entire rewrite.  Plus, expect a lot of
>         architectural
>            improvements in the source code based on experience with Self,
>            Strongtalk and Java Hotspot VMs.
> 
>            I think these properties will rapidly make V8 the dominant VM for
>            dynamic languages.  It ought to make a great platform for
>         Smalltalk.
> 
>            Since I am not a Googler, and they are so secretive, I am not yet
>            privy to all the gory details, but I suspect that it probably
>         won't
>            use type-feedback like Strongtalk, which would be the one big
>         negative
>            (and would mean that it wouldn't be as fast as Strongtalk).
>          However I
>            don't know that for sure, and in any case it will be open source,
>            which means that it might be a nice platform to add
>         type-feedback-
>            based inlining to if they don't do it.  At any rate, it
>         *does* JIT to
>            native code, so it will be far faster than Squeak, and
>         probably a lot
>            faster than Visualworks as well.
> 
>            We'll have to see what the details are when the code comes
>         out, but
>            the release of the V8 VM is the beginning of a whole new era for
>            dynamic languages (Smalltalk, Ruby, Python, etc).
> 
>            Let the flood of fast new dynamic language implementations begin!
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> 
> 
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