[squeak-dev] Re: SmalltalkImage current vs. Smalltalk

Nicolas Cellier nicolas.cellier.aka.nice at gmail.com
Tue Mar 2 20:00:43 UTC 2010


2010/3/2 Andreas Raab <andreas.raab at gmx.de>:
> On 3/2/2010 8:55 AM, Igor Stasenko wrote:
>>
>> If you remember previous discussion about this, i proposed to use
>> Smalltalk, which having a 'globals' ivar , which is a SystemDictionary
>> so, that Smalltalk>>at: x
>> implemented as
>>   globals at: x
>>
>> then Smalltalk global is an instance of SmalltalkImage , equal to
>> SmalltalkImage current.
>> And SystemDictionary is just a dictionary without any extra utility
>> methods.
>
> This is option #2 below. (Sorry I didn't recall your post; otherwise I
> would've named it the Igor variant :-)
>
> Cheers,
>  - Andreas
>
>> On 2 March 2010 18:32, Chris Muller<asqueaker at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Smalltalk is a SystemDictionary, which is-a Dictionary.  This suggests
>>> Smalltalk's main responsibility is mapping the list of global names to
>>> their global objects, and providing access to them by direct
>>> reference.
>>>
>>> I don't understand why would want to commingle a bunch of utility
>>> methods in with this primary (global name mapping) responsibility..?
>>>
>>> What is the problem exactly?
>>>
>>> Also, I'm curious about Cuis compatibility; is this really realistic
>>> or important?  Why is it important?  This would seem to be a
>>> relatively superficial difference with Cuis and other Smalltalk's, so
>>> I hope we will base decisions on what we think is the "right thing" to
>>> do rather than compatibility with something else that might not
>>> matter..
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 10:08 PM, Andreas Raab<andreas.raab at gmx.de>
>>>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Folks -
>>>>
>>>> I was just trying to load some other code and once too many I got bitten
>>>> by
>>>> this silly SmalltalkImage current vs. Smalltalk stuff, so I'll fix it
>>>> now.
>>>> The only question is which way. There are two alternatives which achieve
>>>> the
>>>> goal of "SmalltalkImage current == Smalltalk":
>>>>
>>>> 1) The Cuis variant: Move all the code back to SystemDictionary;
>>>> implement
>>>> SmalltalkImage current as ^Smalltalk.
>>>>
>>>> Pro: Compatible with Cuis.
>>>> Con: Lack of separation of concerns.
>>>>
>>>> 2) The inverse Cuis variant: Move all the code from SystemDictionary to
>>>> SmalltalkImage; add a 'globals' variable (populated by an instance of
>>>> SystemDictionary) and convert everything roughly like this:
>>>>
>>>>        SmalltalkImage current globals: Smalltalk.
>>>>        Smalltalk := SmalltalkImage current.
>>>>
>>>> Pro: Better separation of concerns.
>>>> Con: Different from Cuis.
>>>>
>>>> I really don't care which way we do it; all I want is to get out of the
>>>> mess
>>>> we've created by introducing "SmalltalkImage current".
>>>>
>>>> If you have an opinion, voice it, otherwise I'll just pick one.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>  - Andreas
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

What if instead of writing (SmalltalkImage current) you would just say
(Smalltalk vm).
Would this be tolerably short ?
Would the compatibility layer be short enough ?

Squeak 3.8: SystemDictionary>>vm ^ self
Squeak 3.9 and upper: SystemDictionary>>vm ^ SmalltalkImage current

I took a look, and except source code management, a majority of
SmalltalkImage methods are related to VM and command line.
We could as well move messages to SmalltalkVM and just let a
SmalltalkImage class current hook
But I don't think it is necessary.

What do you think ?



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