I agree with Casmiro's response... GPUs aren't suitable for running  
Smalltalk code.  Larrabee might be interesting, since it will have 16  
or more x86 processors, but it's difficult to see how to utilize the  
powerful vector processor attached to each x86.

Your question was more specifically about running something like Slang  
on it.  It's important to remember that Slang isn't Smalltalk, it's C  
with Smalltalk syntax (i.e. all Slang language constructs are  
implemented by a simple 1-1 mapping onto the corresponding C language  
feature).  So yes, it would be possible to run something like Slang on  
a GPU.  Presumably, you would want to take the integration one step  
farther than with Slang, and automatically compile the generated  
OpenCL or CUDA code instead of dumping it to an external file.

Instead of thinking of running Smalltalk on the GPU, I would think  
about writing a DSL (domain-specific language) for a particular class  
of problems that can be solved well on the GPU.  Then I would think  
about how to integrate this DSL nicely into Smalltalk.

Sean McDermid has done something like this with C#, LINQ, HLSL, and  
Direct3D (http://bling.codeplex.com/).  He's not doing GPGPU per se,  
but the point is how seamless is his integration with C#.

Cheers,
Josh



On Oct 28, 2009, at 5:49 AM, Stefan Marr wrote:

> Hi:
>
> On 27 Oct 2009, at 20:46, Casimiro de Almeida Barreto wrote:
>> I'm considering to build a package to allow the development of math
>> using GPUs (NVIDIA).
> Do you have any intention to do something else then math on the GPUs?
> I guess you just want to provide a wrapper for the libraries, e.g.,  
> OpenCL, right?
>
> Would it be feasible to run some Smalltalk code on it, maybe in a  
> restricted dialect, like Slang?
>
> Best regards
> Stefan
>
>
> -- 
> Stefan Marr
> Software Languages Lab
> Former Programming Technology Lab
> Vrije Universiteit Brussel
> Pleinlaan 2 / B-1050 Brussels / Belgium
> http://prog.vub.ac.be/~smarr
> Phone: +32 2 629 3956
> Fax:   +32 2 629 3525
>
>