[Vm-dev] Best and latest VMs for Open Cobalt release?

[ed.boyce at duke.edu]

Quoting Andreas Raab <andreas.raab at gmx.de>:


>
> The numbering scheme of VMs differs between the various platforms so 
> the 3.10.4 nomenclature is really only applicable to Windows.
>

   Thanks Andreas. So I gather from your response and John McIntosh's that
Windows 3.10-4 and Mac 3.8.21beta are approximately equivalent versions?

   John McIntosh: Then what is the 3.10-2-7179mac offered at squeak.org about?
Is it an alias for 3.8.21beta?

   And I have one not-so-off-topic question: Why are the VM version
numbers/schemes allowed to diverge like this across platforms? 
Particularly for
users who want assurances that SmallTalk code will execute identically across
platforms, this is confusing and not reassuring.

   Thanks again for all insights.

        -- Ed

>>    Looking at http://squeak.org/Download/ and http://squeakvm.org, I 
>> see various
>> latest version #'s available for the different platforms.  One 
>> possible course
>> of action I could take is do fresh builds on each platform from the current
>> subversion sources.  But before go through that exercise, I would 
>> like to ask
>> the knowledgeable members of this list:
>>
>>     1) What is the latest STABLE version of the Squeak VM that is 
>> available for
>> all three major platforms?
>
> On Windows it's 3.10.4.
>
>>     2) Is there any reason anyone can think of that this latest 
>> version would
>> not be suitable and stable for Open Cobalt's alpha debut? This would include
>> performance issues. If so, what is the most recent VM that would be suitable
>> and stable?
>
> All of the recent VMs should be fine. Do note however, that due to 
> the bit-identical replication requirements of Croquet you'll want to 
> run the CroquetVMTests to ensure that everything comes out as 
> expected.
>
>>     3) We would like to expand the number of platforms that Cobalt 
>> is available
>> on.  Does anyone know of Squeak VM builds on platforms such as Solaris and
>> FreeBSD that have the functioning openAL and openGL bindings necessary for
>> Cobalt?
>
> Can't help you here.
>
> Cheers,
>   - Andreas
>