[Vm-dev] [Pharo-dev] Sista alternate bytecodes + Java Bytecode ?

[Clément Bera]

Hi,

That question should be asked on vm-dev.

Just a detail, multibytecode set support is prior to the Sista
implementation, it was used for example in the context of Newspeak (Squeak
and Newspeak bytecodes supported together). Sista uses that feature, which
makes it look like new in the Pharo community since afaik no one used it
before in the context of Pharo.

Then yes it is feasible to have the VM process Java bytecode, but it's
humongous work. On the top my head, we would need to support typed
bytecodes for Numbers and exceptions at the bytecode level (which in itself
is month of work, imagine raising an exception from Java/ST and catch it
from the other runtime, with multiple ensure/try finally in between)

Note that supporting the Java bytecode is far from enough to be able to run
Java code (We also need core Java libraries support at least, including
exceptions/stack reification model that should be able to interact with
each other)

You can have a look at Smalltalk/X where the VM can run Java, C and
Smalltalk.

Regards


On Tue, Oct 3, 2017 at 1:57 PM, Ben Coman <btc at openinworld.com> wrote:

> Just wondering about an exotic idea, with Sista facilitating alternate
> bytecodes (btw, is that multiple bytecode sets within one Image?), how
> feasible would it be to have the VM process Java bytecode?
>
> cheers -ben
>
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