[Squeak-e] Programming the VM

[cg at cdegroot.com]

Mark S. Miller <squeak-e at lists.squeakfoundation.org> said:
>Ok, here's another way to do it. Instead of modifying the format of a 
>virtualized object, have the virtualized object point at a virtualized 
>class instead of the real one. Make the layout changes in the virtualized 
>class. 
>
It could work, however you would be forced to instantiate a virtualized
class (probably a proxy?) for every class in every environment. 

I'm hoping that this stuff will be shareable, so that e.g. in setting up a
new environment you can subtract capabilities from your current
environment by handing the new environment the parent (your environment)
and a set of deltas. But this is vague, very vague, because I still have
no idea of the Something that constitutes the environment and what a
parent environment would want to have for child environments in typical
cases.

Modifying the object format is an uphill battle, for good reasons, but
not one necessarily lost.

-- 
Cees de Groot               http://www.cdegroot.com     <cg at cdegroot.com>
GnuPG 1024D/E0989E8B 0016 F679 F38D 5946 4ECD  1986 F303 937F E098 9E8B
Cogito ergo evigilo