On 12-08-20 1:52 PM, Igor Stasenko wrote:
> On 20 August 2012 04:10, Chris Cunnington <smalltalktelevision at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12-08-19 9:42 PM, Igor Stasenko wrote:
>>> On 20 August 2012 00:53, Chris Cunnington <smalltalktelevision at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> On 12-08-19 6:26 PM, Igor Stasenko wrote:
>>>>> On 17 August 2012 22:21, Yanni Chiu <yanni at rogers.com> wrote:
>>>>>> On 17/08/12 2:46 PM, Lawson English wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Which is a huge downside to the current implementation of NativeBoost,
>>>>>>> although, in theory, you could create a version that would compile to
>>>>>>> C
>>>>>>> via slang rather than using Igor's x86 assembler syntax.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But it's called *Native*Boost. Are you suggesting non-native boost?
>>>>>> Wouldn't
>>>>>> that be Cog/JIT?
>>>>>>
>>>>> Right. It is native. You can talk directly to metal. No layers on
>>>>> top.. you are the in total control.
>>>>> This is the main motivation behind a project.
>>>>> You can build abstractions on top of it, of course. And of course you
>>>>> can make it portable across
>>>>> as many platforms as you need.. It may be hard but it is doable.
>>>>> But conceptually one thing are not gonna change: you have direct
>>>>> access to machine code,
>>>>> which means no compiler standing in your way, which generating
>>>>> suboptimal code :)
>>>>> And for some cases it is simply impossible to implement things in C
>>>>> without heavy sacrifices in speed..
>>>>> consider arithmetic overflow - in CPU's you have a flag which indicates
>>>>> that..
>>>>> but in C there is no way how you can access it.. so you cannot just
>>>>> write:
>>>>>
>>>>> int a, b;
>>>>> if ( (result = a +b) > maxInt )
>>>>> {
>>>>>     .. switch to big integer arithmetic ..
>>>>> }
>>>>>
>>>>> and i guess you can find many other cases where direct machine code is
>>>>> more preferable than produced by compiler(s).
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> In the last few posts you just wrote as many words arguing for
>>>> NativeBoost
>>>> as David did explaining how to get started writing a plugin. Except when
>>>> he
>>>> was done a person could actually start to write a plugin. If you and
>>>> Lawson
>>>> spent as much time providing examples for NativeBoost as you do extolling
>>>> its virtues, I could actually try it for myself.
>>>>
>>> Chris, its unfair.
>> Thank you. Thank you very much. :)
>>
>>> First, David only gave instructions how to set things up,
>>> but not how to actually start writing a plugin.. if he would do that,
>>> his post will be extended to dozens of pages :)
>> Yea, but it's a start. I mean he's got to start talking about subclassing
>> from InterpreterPlugin? He covers a lot of ground for a beginning.
>>
>>> And second, if i remember, you were present at my presentation i
>>> giving about NB,
>>> so i really surprised to hear that from you.
>> Hmmmm... this one http://osrcon.ca/AboutFFI.pdf ?
>>
>> Yea, OK, you have a point. But in my defense DeepIntoSmalltalk was ... let's
>> just say there was a lot of material.
>>
>>> But you right, i am not good at writing docs, because i am way too
>>> lazy, and there's always more important things to do (well you know
>>> ;). But i am working on fixing that. :)
>> I seem to recall Lawson makes movies.
>>
>>> And for getting starting with NB you can just follow installation
>>> instructions from here:
>>> http://code.google.com/p/nativeboost/wiki/Installation
>>>
>>> and if you need some examples of use, just recently i found this project:
>>> http://www.squeaksource.com/ICU
>> That looks interesting.
>>
>>> which interesting in respect that it using two different FFI
>>> implementations,
>>> so you can load both and browse code and compare the way how things done.
>>> I am not sure in what state this project are, but since you don't need
>>> to actually "run" things, you can just
>>> browse the code to see how it done.
>>>
>> But "I would like to know more" about NativeBoost. (As long as I don't have
>> to work too hard to know it. :p)
> Just today i spent couple of hours to make the NB-Help package work
> out of the box.
> You can find the NativeBoost-Help package in NativeBoost repository..
> i wrote some stuff there but it is not that much..(and some stuff is
> already outdated.. things moving fast) however i will keep pumping
> into it. :)
>
> All you need to do is to load this package , and then open the system
> help browser (from world menu) and look for
> NativeBoost bookmark.
Thanks. This stuff looks great. I'll watch for updates to the Help 
package. The Help Browser is a nice way to learn things, as it's bite 
sized, right there in the image, etc. I've got a NativeBoost.app on my 
desktop now and will poke around with it. I do see there is some stuff 
at the http://code.gogoel.com/p/nativeboost location. The Help Browser 
is a more fun place for it to be, I think.

Chris

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFj8eFZx-TA&feature=related
>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=l_5UZfwX0ss&NR=1
>>
>> (That's an inside joke to people who were at DeepIntoSmalltalk. Igor's
>> slides showed him to be a big fan of Starship Troopers and Firefly.)
>>>> Chris
>>
>>
>
>