[Vm-dev] 64-bit FFI (was: egg sucking alert)

[David T. Lewis]

On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 10:28:04AM -0800, Eliot Miranda wrote:
>  
> On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 3:12 AM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
> >
> > On 11.12.2014, at 03:01, Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > There's an oddity of a 32-bit VM compiled in 64-bit mode on a 64-bit
> > machine.  I don't know of anyone using it.
> >
> Right.  But since the rationale for this VM is only to interface with
> 64-bit libraries, it depends on a 64-bit FFI, which we do not have.

I realize that this refers to the VMs and FFI implementations that are
actually available in released VMs, but just for the historical record:

A working 64-bit FFI has been available since 2008, but the patches were not
adopted. Source patches and issue status are here:

  http://bugs.squeak.org/view.php?id=7237

My intention had been to make this a top priority for the VM team circa 2009,
but other priorities took precedence.

Since then, the original FFI has been rendered obsolete by later development,
and as a practical matter there is no 64-bit FFI available today.

There were image side changes to the Mantis 7237 patches, and I'm not sure
if these will be relevant to Eliot's newer FFI implementation. I'll try 
to look into this and report back if I find anything of interest.

Dave