[Vm-dev] Overview of the OpenSmalltalk VM and its build process

[Raffaello Giulietti]

Hi,

I'm interested in understanding the overall OpenSmalltalk VM structure 
and design and its build process.

I read [1] and [2] to get a high level picture of the vm and its 
interesting strategy to development (Slang, VMMaker, etc.)

Apart from these, are there other useful documents/sites/tutorials on 
the vm development process in general and about the underlying ideas in 
the build process? I'm aware that vm construction is a rather special 
topic but any useful reference or hint is welcome.

I'm already familiar with the interesting [3] and [4] websites and their 
authors papers, talks and slides, but these do not seem to help much in 
clarifying the development process itself.

In particular, I'm targeting Pharo 64 bit/Win 64 bit (x64-86). I hope to 
be able someday to actively participate in bringing Cog/Spur/Sista to a 
more mature status on this platform.

The questions I would like to find an answer to are of the following kind:
* Where should I start?
* Should I use Squaek or can I use Pharo for vm development purposes?
* What are the restrictions of Slang?
* Where does VMMaker live?
* Which C toolchain shall I use?
* Which release of gcc, ld, make are known to work?
* What about clang?
* Which version of cygwin64 or mingw64 are OK?
* etc.



Greetings
Raffaello

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[1] http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr1997001_backto.pdf
[2] http://design.cs.iastate.edu/vmil/2011/papers/p03-miranda.pdf
[3] http://www.mirandabanda.org/cogblog/
[4] https://clementbera.wordpress.com/