[squeak-dev] Re: [Newbies] I need an idea. I know you have some. Give.

Stefan Marr smalltalk at stefan-marr.de
Fri Mar 8 16:25:47 UTC 2013


Hi:

On 08 Mar 2013, at 16:44, Jeff Gonis wrote:

> 2) Work to implement some of the RoarVM concepts into the regular SqueakVM
> 
> Pros: My computer seems to acquire more cores with each passing year,
> but 100000 factorial still only maxes out one of them.  This is a
> shame. Allowing squeak to utilize the numerous threads that we all
> have access to will be vital in ensuring its relevance in the coming
> years.  The RoarVM already allows this in a Squeak image.  Combined
> with Eliot's work on JITing Smalltalk code Squeak could rule the
> world!
> 
> Cons: RoarVM was part of a research project and as I understand it the
> straight-line performance is far behind the regular squeak VM.  It
> also appears to be a fairly substantial fork of the regular VM, so
> there could probably be a lot of work involved on both the image side
> and the VM side in getting its facilities integrated.

This is indeed the better approach. I would use the CogVM as a starting point instead of the existing RoarVM.
So far, Cog is 'simple' enough, and there are only a few things, for instance the polymorphic inline caches
that are problematic. For things like primitives etc, Igor's HydraVM also provides relevant improvements.

Best regards
Stefan



-- 
Stefan Marr
Software Languages Lab
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Pleinlaan 2 / B-1050 Brussels / Belgium
http://soft.vub.ac.be/~smarr
Phone: +32 2 629 2974
Fax:   +32 2 629 3525



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