David,
You can find a lot of experiences in Smalltalk field, some
 many years before Java language was designed. If you do
 some research in Smalltalk history,
 a lot of good moments of reading is granted.
IMO Smalltalk without native compilation demostrates
 the simplicity of Smalltalk (Dolphin Smalltalk low level
 impl. come to my mind here), but it is a must where
 high perfomance is required.
When considering object systems we must also consider
 garbage collection and flow of energy spent in the system,
 that most of the times is not reported from execution
 speed nor microbenchmarks.
A lot of development has been done using Smalltalk
 platforms (some results was exploited in java implementations
 and others)... in dynamic compilation,
 in strategies to manage objects and garbage
 and in development of self sustaining systems.
Smalltalk do not impose a common base nor
 fixed VM semantics, so advances in smalltalk
 are diverse and continue today. This is the reason why
 we can see diferent alternatives for smalltalk and
 no need to converge to an universal model.
The compilation to native level is a must for a high
 perfomance smalltalk, but it is not enough; today
 eficience is needed at all levels and also compromise
 with history (new smalltalk platforms like DNG,
 comes to my mind here).
cheers,
Ale.


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Zmick 
  To: Squeak-dev List 
  Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 10:40 PM
  Subject: [squeak-dev] Compiling Smalltalk


  Me and a cousin of mine where discussing the speed of compiled languages vs the speed of interpreted languages and the subject of compiling interpreted languages came up.  Languages like Java that are compiled down to bytecode can then be compiled to machine code, but I was under the impression that concept was impossible with smalltalk. Why is this?  And, I know there is a project to build a compiler for smaltalk, what is the concept behind it?

  thanks

  -- 
  David Zmick
  /dz0004455\
  http://david-zmick.co.cc



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