[Vm-dev] Recreating live coding in CPython 3.5

Wed Oct 11 13:46:54 UTC 2017

unfortunately no, those articles focus on JIT compilation and method
lookups and not live coding.

I know how to find method objects , thats not my problem. JIT is not my
concern either. But none the less thanks for the links they made a very
enlighting read after lunch.

Well lets first start with the obvious questions

1) What are the live coding capabilities/features of the Cog VM ?
2) What are its live coding limitations ?
3) When a live object is updated is it only the new compiled method that is
injected ?
4) Does this injection follows a particular schedule or process ? Or is
something happening ASAP after the user accepts the method ?
4) Does class and method renaming also happen at VM level ? Is it related
to live coding ?

On Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 3:49 PM Ben Coman <btc at openinworld.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 8:11 PM, Dimitris Chloupis <kilon.alios at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> on the subject of
>> " In Pharo the VM recompiles a method and replace it’s old instance with
>> a new one while code executes"
>> I was wrong, the rest it correct in the live execution of the code and
>> other objects.
>>
>> Pharo VM will update the class objects (together with other type of
>> objects) but it wont update instance objects.Probably this is done on
>> purpose for not overriding and losing on reload the existing live state and
>> live code (in this case instance methods), because module reloading is not
>> made specific for live coding as I explained in the thread. So a class
>> object will be replaced but not an instance. What led me to this wrong
>> assumption was that the code I am working on is reinitialising my objects
>> for debugging purposes because currently live state is not my concern as I
>> am working on a GUI and some other technical reason. I did not realise that
>> it was my reinisitialisation that was updating my instance objects(method
>> wise, state was lost obviously) and not Python VM. Hence in my code the
>> instance objects were always updated to the latest code as I was changing
>> it. However now I enter the stage that I need to also update the live state
>> without a full reinitialisation.
>>
>> Its possible to update the instance object manually . So far I have found
>> two ways of doing this
>> a) Reinitialisation and take the state from the old one (instance
>> variables and their values are stored as a dicitionary) and copy them to
>> the new one and discard the old instance or
>> b)  take the methods (methods in python are objects and so are functions
>> so they can be referenced) from the new one and copy them to the old one
>> and discard the new instance.
>> I have tested both, both work as expected. Now I am in the process of
>> finding how to detect that a class changed in a module so i dont have to
>> reinitialise all classes (I know the overall solution to this as well) in a
>> module and because reloading works per module at least I have avoided the
>> other instances. But that is not my problem.
>>
>> My problem is what other challanges I have to face which I am not aware
>> of live coding wise. Because I never tried implementing live coding
>> enviroment in another language (my experiements are focused only on live
>> execution of code because at the time the idea was to keep using Pharo for
>> live state data) before it would be great if experts give me an insight
>> about Pharo's live coding internals. This way I can "steal" cool ideas that
>> I may not be aware they exists and make my live coding environment library
>> progressively closer to Pharo.
>>
>
>> Hence, I need guidance for the advanced stuff.
>>
>
> I'm not sure if this matches what you want, but I remember finding these
> articles enlightening about VM internals...
> * https://clementbera.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/the-cog-vm-lookup/
> *
> http://www.mirandabanda.org/cogblog/2011/03/01/build-me-a-jit-as-fast-as-you-can/
>
> Alternatively, with your background and focus on Python, maybe you can
> learn something from RSqueak? ...
> * http://scg.unibe.ch/archive/papers/Bolz08aSpy.pdf
> *
> http://stefan-marr.de/2014/02/how-to-get-a-jit-compiler-for-free-implementing-som-smalltalk-with-rpython-and-truffle/
>
> cheers -ben
>
>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 2:09 PM Nicolai Hess <nicolaihess at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> 2017-10-11 12:14 GMT+02:00 Dimitris Chloupis <kilon.alios at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hey there as it says in the title I am trying to recreat live coding
>>>> Pharo chracteristics in Python .
>>>>
>>>
>>> Now I am confused, I thought you already did this? In the other thread
>>> you wrote:
>>>
>>> "From my experience around  100 lines of code are enough to offer most
>>> of Pharo’s basic live coding functionality"
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> One of the issues I have is live replacing of a method to an existing
>>>> instance.
>>>>
>>>
>>> And in the other thread you wrote:
>>>
>>> "Well live coding is a simple process of reloading code. In Pharo the VM
>>> recompiles a method and replace it’s old instance with a new one while code
>>> executes.
>>>
>>> Python you basically reload the module. Because Python does not compile
>>> per method but per module which means executing code lively. This happens
>>> because when you import a module in Python, Python does nothing special
>>> than executing the source code. Not before compilation but during
>>> execution. Hence live coding, the Python VM replaces objects lively. Python
>>> can also compile any size of code including individual methods.
>>>
>>> That happens with one line of code importlib.reload(mymodule) "
>>>
>>> So, if python can already reload code and replace the instances, what is
>>> missing ?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I know how to do this in Python but that shown me I would benefit
>>>> greatily from a more deeper understanding of Pharo live coding internals
>>>> than I have at the moment which is only at the user level. This will help
>>>> me avoid common pitfalls in a field that I am not experienced with.
>>>>
>>>> Have you guys written any paper , article or blog post in this area,
>>>> explaining the internals of the VM to that regard ?
>>>>
>>>> I am also interested in time machine livde coding, meaning live coding
>>>> that does not keeps you in the present but also can send you back in the
>>>> past restoring the live state of old object instances in a specific time
>>>> moment.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I remember a project that developed some tools for back-in-time
>>> debugging and testing
>>>
>>> https://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/hirschfeld/trac/SqueakCommunityProjects/wiki/pathToolsFramework
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Generally any guidance on the art of implementing live coding will be
>>>> greatly appreciated.
>>>>
>>>> I don't care how this can be done in Python because I have already
>>>> recreated a very basic live coding enviroment in Python and there is a lot
>>>> of documentation about Python overall what I am interested only is the
>>>> Smalltalk way of doing live coding but from the perspective of the
>>>> implementors not the mere users.
>>>>
>>>>
>>
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