<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 10:51 AM, Bruce Boyer <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bruce.boyer@alumni.uci.edu">bruce.boyer@alumni.uci.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
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<div><font face="Arial" size="2">This is rather a sensitive area with me at the
moment, as I'm working on indexing docs. I've had to resort to using
"image" and "graphical image" to try to distinguish these two, but "image"
remains unclear to anyone who doesn't already know.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">I could guess that the term "snapshot" came first,
as a methaphorical attempt to describe what saving that thing is, and "image" is
what snapshots give (or pictures or something even worse for that thing).
But, it's only a guess.</font></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Right. That's why I don't like either snapshot or image. What are these snapshots or images of? They are intentionally abstract terms and are unhelpful. Yes, snapshot is much better, but still hopelessly abstract.</div>
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<div><font face="Arial" size="2">If a really good term were proferred, the
documentation cost will be amortized over a long period of time, so not a
worry. Getting it accepted by smalltalkers will be the harder
problem.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">I'm not sure, though, that "system file" is
right. The file part is just an artifact of saving the state of the
system, providing a way to preserving it for a restart. </font></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>But I see a snapshot file are more than just a memory dump. It /is/ the entire Smalltalk system, class library, potentially compiler, debugger, tools. It is in a format that requires the virtual machine to run it, but it is in fact the Smalltalk system in quiescent form. It is not a memory dump. It is only a dump of the Smalltalk object heap, not the entire memory space.</div>
<div><br></div><div>It is more than just a way of saving the state. It is also a way of moving that state and resuming it on a different system. Once you have the virtual machine key you can unlock the image, uh, system, but everything you need to program the system (beyond execution display and input devices) is there.</div>
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<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">Is there a recognizable term for the state of
memory at a moment? Cognitive scientists might have something, though I'm
sure it would be hugely debated whether there is any such thing.</span></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I forget...</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
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<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Waste of time? Perhaps. But, beats
indexing :)</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Bruce</font></div>
<blockquote style="padding-right:0px;padding-left:5px;margin-left:5px;border-left:#000000 2px solid;margin-right:0px"><div><div></div><div class="h5">
<div style="font:10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </div>
<div style="background:#e4e4e4;font:10pt arial"><b>From:</b>
<a title="eliot.miranda@gmail.com" href="mailto:eliot.miranda@gmail.com" target="_blank">Eliot
Miranda</a> </div>
<div style="font:10pt arial"><b>To:</b> <a title="squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org" href="mailto:squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org" target="_blank">The general-purpose Squeak
developers list</a> ; <a title="pharo-project@lists.gforge.inria.fr" href="mailto:pharo-project@lists.gforge.inria.fr" target="_blank">Pharo Development</a> ; <a title="vwnc@cs.uiuc.edu" href="mailto:vwnc@cs.uiuc.edu" target="_blank">vwnc NC</a> </div>
<div style="font:10pt arial"><b>Sent:</b> Friday, March 12, 2010 9:59
AM</div>
<div style="font:10pt arial"><b>Subject:</b> [vwnc] image overload</div>
<div><br></div>Hi All,
<div><br></div>
<div> I'm sure Im opening an old topic but anyway, as I was
riding the train to work today I saw a shop called "Audio Images" and it
struck me how overloaded the term image is, and how poor a term for the
contents of the image file Smalltalk image is. What's in the image is a
snapshot of... almost the entire system (minus platform-specific virtual
machine and possibly minus sources). So Smalltalk system file would be a
far better term and stsys a more unique file extension (and according to
Wikipedia STS is unused too). I can imagine that changing form image
would be hugely expensive in documentation terms (docs, websites, workspaces,
etc, etc). But I can at least dream of a better term.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>P.S. I know, wasting one's time worrying about names. Almost
as bad as worrying about colours</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><span style="font-size:13px;line-height:19px;font-family:sans-serif">"And the
wheel," said the Captain, "What about this wheel thingy? It sounds a terribly
interesting project."<br>"Ah," said the marketing girl, "Well, we're having a
little difficulty there."<br>"Difficulty?" exclaimed Ford. "Difficulty? What
do you mean, difficulty? It's the single simplest machine in the entire
Universe!"<br>The marketing girl soured him with a look.<br>"Alright, Mr.
Wiseguy," she said, "if you're so clever, you tell us what colour it should
be."</span></div>
</div></div><p>
</p><hr>
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