Hi!

Just to get myself up to date on the latest. Is it still true, that we got
three independent VMs?

1. Interpreter VM
2. Stack VM
3. Cog

So as I recall the Stack VM was planned to replace the Interpreter VM
entirely. Or are there any cases were one only could use an Interpreter VM
(or cog)? Or is the Stack VM the all versatile VM by now? What are the
requirements for cog to run?


It might not come as a surprise, but I haven't looked into the VM code
lately. But I recall that the linux VM at least uses the modules framework
to have different display, sound, etc. plugins for the VM. I don't know how
interleaved the VMs from above are, but would it be out of scope to have
_one_ VM that could have different object engines as VM plugins? So the VM
could check the architecture it's running on and the image that should be
loaded and decide on that what object engine to load/use?

The obvious benefit for the enduser I see is: *There is only one VM !*

The benefit for VM developers might be that they only need to focus on the
object engines and they would share a common VM frame.

This might be a "well yes, but too much work" thing, but nevertheless it's
something I would like to share.

(If turns out that the energy would better invested into something
different, there is also the possibility to use the package system on
debian derived systems, that would take care to install the right VMs on
such system, so that the enduser wouldn't need to worry about this. And I
guess there is a similar mechanism for windows and mac)

Alex
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