[Vm-dev] Re: Pragmas in VMMaker (was: Cryptography plugins (was: Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Cog bugs (was Re: Cog on linux))

[Levente Uzonyi]

On Tue, 20 Jul 2010, David T. Lewis wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 01:45:13AM +0200, Levente Uzonyi wrote:
>> On Thu, 15 Jul 2010, C. David Shaffer wrote:
>>>
>>> Can you send me your Crypto plugin fixes so I can merge them into
>>> squeaksource?  Thanks!
>>
>> I uploaded it to
>> http://leves.web.elte.hu/cryptography/CryptographyPlugins-ul.2.mcz
>> . I think the current VMMaker for SqueakVM support pragma declarations,
>> but I'm not sure. If it doesn't, then some changes will have to be
>> reverted. The VMMaker of CogVM is unhappy with the old message-style
>> declarations (#var:type: #var:declareC: #export: etc.).
>
> The current VMMaker for SqueakVM does not use or support pragmas
> (method annotations). Converting to pragmas makes VMMaker unloadable
> in older Squeak images.

That's a totally valid reason to avoid pragmas if the current VMMaker is 
used with pre-3.9 images. I don't think it's a useful feature, but a real 
world use-case can convince me.

>
> It should be feasible to have the Cog VMMaker handle message send
> declarations (although I have not tried), but the reverse may not
> be supportable. If that is the case, then plugins that are intended
> for use on both SqueakVM and Cog would need to use message-based
> declarations, at least until such time as we decide to move SqueakVM
> to use method annotations.

The Cog VMMaker accepts some plugins with message-based declarations 
(like the SqueakSSL plugin), but I got some compilation errors because of 
undefined functions like vardeclareC and missing variables in some plugins 
(IIRC the FTPlugin was one of them and the DESPlugin was another, but I'm 
not sure). After fixing a 10-20 methods, I decided to rewrite most 
plugins.


Levente

>
> Follow-up discussion concerning method annotations in SqueakVM and
> Cog VMMaker is probably best moved to the vm-dev list.
>
> Dave
>
>
>