[Vm-dev] I need an idea. I know you have some. Give.

[Louis LaBrunda]

Hi Casey,

Since you are posting the to VM news group I will give you an idea I had a
while ago that requires a little VM work.  The goal is an object database
that doesn't require serializing the objects.

This would be done by replacing the normal memory pointers in objects with
offsets from the beginning of the database.  Persistent objects (those from
the database) would have an indicator to distinguish them form
non-persistent objects.  When accessing persistent objects the VM would use
the database offset pointer as a key into a virtual memory lookup table
whose value would be the real memory address of the object.  If not present
in the table, the object would be read from the database.  Remember,
everything else about the object would look the same as it does now in
memory.  From time to time the VM would save all changed (DB) objects to
the database.  If this sounds familiar it should, it is the way most caches
work.

I have no experience with the VM (and not very much experience with Squeak)
but I think this would be a cool project and it could be useful.  I'm not
is much better shape than you are but I could contribute some time and
ideas.

Lou


>Hello Squeakers!
>
>My job search is turning up dead ends, hurry up and wait, and unfathomably boring prospects. 
>
>Screw all that! I want to do something cool. 
>
>I'm thinking about doing a KickStarter, but almost all of my ideas are either a) stuff no one else wants which only I could possibly think would be cool, or b) overly ambitious. The words Andreas used to describe my last idea: "a bit grandiose." Gift for understatement at times. 
>
>So I'm looking for something which could be completed by one or two geeks in six months to a year, which people actually want, to be implemented (at least in part) using Squeak, and to be released at the end under the MIT license. 
>
>I've floored my expenses, so I can make my own labor (relatively, for a guy living in Seattle) very cheap. By floored, I mean the room I sleep in isn't even tall enough to stand up in -- I do not presently meet the definition of a free-range chicken -- and I've disconnected my cellular service. I want to be an efficient engine for getting things that matter to me and other people done, rather than go on being some tool used to ship lucrative enterprise crapware. 
>
>So here's the $x question: what do you want me to do? I have a Raspberry Pi on order, so bonus points if you can work that in somehow.
>
>The person with the best (realistic) idea will be credited for it. 
>
>Inspire me! And thanks for reading all the way down to the bottom of this message. 
>
>Casey
-----------------------------------------------------------
Louis LaBrunda
Keystone Software Corp.
SkypeMe callto://PhotonDemon
mailto:Lou at Keystone-Software.com http://www.Keystone-Software.com