Squeak-dev September 2002

squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org

165 participants
288 discussions

RE: Progrmaming in Bytecode?
by Swan, Dean 24 Nov '06

24 Nov '06

>> It's not uncommon to find x86 code padded with a lot of NOPs >> that weren't in the original source. > >Cowardly assembler! ;-) > >> [NOPs...] Sometimes they're there to pad the execution pipeline, and >> sometimes it's just because the code generator allocates a whole large >> enough for the largest form of an instruction to simplify the branch >> target calculations. > >We must be talking about M$oft assemblers here. ;^p) Yes. This has been pretty characteristic of MS assemblers as far back as I can remember (i.e. about MASM 2.0 - I remember being quite excited when MASM 4.0 came out - '186 and '286 code!). >The real problem is that the solution in general might require N >iterations for a piece of code with N branches -- if promoting one of them >from short to long causes the next (or, much more problematically, a >preceding) one to become long too. You're such an optimist. O(n) is close to best case for this problem. >This is a weak form of what I suppose one might call an "oscillating >constraints" problem. (Hands up anyone who has ever seen [La]TeX get Hence, stochastic optimization. Even MS uses stochastic optimizers now, even in vb. (didn't want to say that too loud here. ;) ) >The usual cause for "padding" in (capable) assemblers (other than for >prefetch alignment, as you point out) is due to dynamic linking where the >size of call sites isn't known until link time. (On modern systems the Not only prefetch alignment. I have heard, although I don't know the details that sometimes it's desirable to force a dead cycle in the execution pipeline. I can only guess that this would be to influence the scheduling of the execution units for complex instructions, but I consider myself to be only a "casual observer" with respect to this kind of thing. >In Smalltalk you've also got a bigger problem: for very long methods the >range of even unconditional branches might not be enough, at which point >I know this has nothing whatsoever to do with Smalltalk...) Well, to kind of tie this back into something relevant to Squeak - I know a few people have talked about "new" VM instruction sets. It seems that it might help to think about a VM where all instructions are the same size. This could simplify code generation (i.e. compiling methods), and possibly improve performance and *reduce* code size (at least in the case of long methods). The anticipated performance improvement would come from forcing aligned fetches more often and potentially simpler instruction decoding. It's really nice to work with an architecture where all instructions take up one word of memory, take one cyle to execute, and sometimes can cause five or six different useful things to occur during that one cycle. (ok, so I write a lot of DSP code...) The single cycle thing isn't necessarily relevant for Smalltalk, but those "extended" bytecodes are really distasteful to me. -Dean

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[ENH] Undeclared cleanup
by Michael Rueger 23 Aug '04

23 Aug '04

Hi all, this tiny goodie removes all entries without references from Undeclared. Maybe this should be called after every file in. Michael 'From Squeak2.8alpha of 19 January 2000 [latest update: #2052] on 5 May 2000 at 1:27:13 pm'! !Utilities class methodsFor: 'miscellaneous' stamp: 'mir 5/5/2000 13:26'! cleanupUndeclared | toBeRemoved refs | "Utilities cleanupUndeclared" toBeRemoved _ Set new. Undeclared associationsDo: [:assoc | refs _ Smalltalk allCallsOn: assoc. refs isEmpty ifTrue: [toBeRemoved add: assoc key]]. toBeRemoved do: [:each | Undeclared removeKey: each]! !

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[ENH] new String modifier: String>>asPlural
by Norton, Chris 24 May '04

24 May '04

Hi Folks. Here's the preamble from my changeset: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "OK. You could say that this is a silly crusade, but I like my Squeak messages to be in proper English (at least when the language you're using is English). I was messing around with the HangMan file-in and I got a walkback that had the following title: 'Error: HangManPhrases classs are not indexable'. I just couldn't stand the extra 's' on 'class', so I created a nifty new String method called asPlural and I modified the sender of the odd string to use the new String modifier. Take it or leave it, but I think this makes auto-generated text just a little easier to read." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I hope you find this new String modifier useful too. Cheers! ---==> Chris <<PluralStrings-ccn.cs>>

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[BUG][FIX] A Morph that rendered by a TransformationMorph is not saved correctly
by Kazuhiro ABE 14 Oct '03

14 Oct '03

Hi all, A Morph that rendered by a TransformationMorph is not saved correctly. In this case, it needs to save a renderer instead of itself. 1. make an Ellipse morph 2. write a following script: Ellipse turn: 5 3. tick the script 4. save this morph by 'save morph in file' menu of debug halo 5. load the morph by 'load as morph' menu from filelist. 6. tick the script again 7. OOPS!! File in the attached changes, now saving and loading will work. Regards, Kazuhiro ABE NISHIHARA Satoshi

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Re: [Modules] C and Smalltalk modules
by Anthony Hannan 10 Mar '03

10 Mar '03

Hello again, here's a simpler description of the modules I presented in my previous email. A module is an object that introduces new objects and specifies changes to existing objects in imported modules. When a module is linked its changes are applied to the existing objects. When a module is unlinked its changes are undone. A module is automatically linked when a process that has the module in its environment becomes active. Process has a new instance variable called environment that points to a module. A module is IN an environment iff the environment directly or indirectly imports the module. A module is automatically unlinked when a process that does NOT have the module in its environment becomes active. Pointers that cross module boundaries are converted to identifiers when unlinked and converted back to pointers when linked. For example, a class Foo introduced in ModuleB may have its superclass Bar introduced in ModuleA, an import of ModuleB. When ModuleB is unlinked, Foo's superclass will contain the identifier #Bar. When it is linked back it will contain the class Bar. If there is no global pointing directly to Bar, its identifier will specify a path to Bar from a global, for example #Classes.Bar. Modules only deal with objects and identifiers and is independent of any class (or classless) structure. Thanks, Anthony

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SMInstaller (was re: [ANN] Seaside 2.02)
by danielv＠netvision.net.il 08 Nov '02

08 Nov '02

That's the main problem I'd like to solve by having install be one registered service of many that can handle packages. The design would allow the user to choose the tool he wants, and have many installers active for the same package. Daniel Avi Bryant <avi(a)beta4.com> wrote: > > On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 goran.hultgren(a)bluefish.se wrote: > > > > (I don't necessarily recommend updating through SqueakMap, though - better > > > would be to file it in clean to a new image. Need to get that > > > SMDVSInstaller going...) > > > > Exactly! :-) > > Looking at that again, I remembered what my other problem was with > #canInstall:, that I forgot to mention in my last post - since DVS files > are just .st, they get snapped up by the default installer before the DVS > installer ever gets a chance... > > What I've done before in similar situations is to do a leaf-first search, > so that subclassing an existing installer (and adding narrower criteria) > is feasible. > > I propose the following change to SMInstaller class: > > classForPackage: aPackage > "Find the most specialized subclass that wants to handle the package." > > self subclasses do: > [:ea | > (ea classForPackage: aPackage) > ifNotNilDo: [:class | ^ class]]. > > ^ (self canInstall: aPackage) ifTrue: [self]

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[Modules] mailing list and activities
by danielv＠netvision.net.il 02 Nov '02

02 Nov '02

For those who got to wondering about that strange quietness in module land - About a week ago I tried to compile a shopping list of stuff we still need to make modules. I mailed some people that had shown some sort of interest. Anyway, this became a fast and furious discussion, that became a mailing list at sqmodules(a)lists.advantive.com, courtesy of Stephen Pair. I thought this was a good time to announce it here, because some people were asking questions. So anyone seriously interested in module, and not minding the smoke, sparks and rough edges of really raw code is invited to join. A bit about what's going on - Andreas Raab has convinced us that it'd be better to move to strong modules now, mostly in order to simplify the code and the mental model of how things should work. This requires some major changes to the tool set, and he's just released a first version of a module aware browser. This includes nice support for automatically keeping track of dependencies. Stephen Pair and I thought up a nice and simple way of passing around the names of modules for people to load - just make it a Url. Select something like loadmodule:/People/dvf/GraphAlgorithms in any text pane, bring up the menu, url-it, and that's it, you have a module. I'll post that here soon. Stephen Pair's selectors spaces are also a hot topic of discussion, and he's been refining the ideas and working out an implementation, to help round out modules later. If you want more detail, and especially if you're already working on modules (CraigL, Torge,you there?) you're welcome to read the archives and join us there. Note that traffic's been somewhat heavy lately. Of course whenever something's ready for prime time, things will be presented here. The original reason for the separate discussion was that modules were not popular and not easily popularized. When modules become a little more mainstream, the discussion should probably return to squeak-dev. Daniel

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Re: [ANN] SqueakMap RC2 and SM Loader 0.96 out
by danielv＠netvision.net.il 31 Oct '02

31 Oct '02

Did you get a dump or something? I haven't gotten around to trying out VI4, so I haven't tested the RB on it. It uses blocks, including calling fixTemps on them, since it sometimes assumes the blocks are closures. Might cause a problem that they suddenly are? When did the hand occur? during use, or during filein? Do you have a recipe that reproduces this? if you do, I'll load VI4 and check it out. Daniel Vainsencher PhiHo Hoang <phiho.hoang(a)rogers.com> wrote: > Hi Göran, > > Everything works like a charm now. Thanks. > > Except when I tried to install RefactoringBrowser into VI4 image. > > Squeak hung .Other packages were installed OK. > > Is it just me and my machine ?. > > Cheers, > > PhiHo. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Göran Hultgren" <goran.hultgren(a)bluefish.se> > To: <squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org> > Sent: Saturday, October 26, 2002 2:23 PM > Subject: Re: [ANN] SqueakMap RC2 and SM Loader 0.96 out > > > > Hi Phiho and all! > > > > Quoting PhiHo Hoang <phiho.hoang(a)rogers.com>: > > > Daniel, > > > > > > Is http://anakin.bluefish.se:8000/gohu/11 down now ? > > > > > > Cheers, > > > > > > PhiHo. > > > > I just saw it myself - weird, the machine was up but ComSwiki had "hung". > > I just restarted it - try again, it works for me now. > > > > Hmmm, will need to publish my downloads in a more stable way than ComSwiki > > obviously... > > > > regards, Göran > > > > > > Göran Hultgren, goran.hultgren(a)bluefish.se > > GSM: +46 70 3933950, http://www.bluefish.se > > \"Department of Redundancy department.\" -- ThinkGeek > >

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Re: [ANN] SqueakMap RC2 and SM Loader 0.96 out
by danielv＠netvision.net.il 30 Oct '02

30 Oct '02

David Farber <dfarber(a)numenor.com> wrote: [SM Qs] Were answered by the appropriate authority... :-) > BTW, I was doing all of this so I could run the sUnit tests for the Refactoring Browser like you asked me to. I got 92 errors, all of which seem to be due to the fact that I am missing certain .st files--which I assume are the fabled Refactoring Browser test data files. Ah... yes, thanks, I was going mad why I couldn't reproduce these errors otherwise reasonable people kept getting... > Why don't you package the test data files with the RB code and put it up on SqueakMap as (something like) RB-Development? I certainly will, as soon as I figure out how to use SM to package files that should be *not* filed in, but just put in the default directory. Would SAR be useful for this? Daniel Vainsencher > david > > At 05:00 PM 10/26/2002 +0300, you wrote: > >The SqueakMap RC2 should show up your Loaders, just install it again, > >and it will pull in the updated SMLoader too. > > > >I know Goran has included Ned's improvements and added some package > >state testing methods. Ned's changes are what makes the description pane > >so much nicer now. > > > >Contents of SML 0.96 over 0.95 - > >- Help now includes a link to SMLoader on the Swiki (the content there > >is still embryonic, yell if yout think somethings missing. It's at > >http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/2726) > >- Fixed an update bug Ned found out (out of date contents when a package > >is installed and stops matching the filters). > >- Updated to SM RC2 > > > >Let Goran and myself know if anything's broken. > > > >Daniel > > > >=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=F6ran_Hultgren?= <goran.hultgren(a)bluefish.se> wrote: > >> Go Daniel! > >> > >> Go! :-) > >> > >> Now I will be offline for the rest of the weekend. > >> Will check that all went smooth in the next hour though. > >> > >> regards, Gsran > >> > >> > >> Gsran Hultgren, goran.hultgren(a)bluefish.se > >> GSM: +46 70 3933950, http://www.bluefish.se > >> \"Department of Redundancy department.\" -- ThinkGeek > > > > > -- > David Farber > dfarber(a)numenor.com

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Re: Squeak Starter
by Richard A. O'Keefe 23 Oct '02

23 Oct '02

On Sat, 21 Sep 2002, Radnour Acton-Page wrote: > However, I find Morphic very confusing, are there any simple > examples for me to follow ? There are tutorials on the Swiki. Visit http://www.squeak.org/ and follow the Documentation link. You can find some tutorials that way. There are also tutorials that you can run inside Squeak. 1. Fire up Squeak. 2. Look at the bottom of the window. You'll see a brownish rounded rectangle (in Squeak 3.2 it's in the bottom left hand corner) labelled "Navigator". (These things around the window are called "flaps".) This means "navigation between projects". Click on the flap so it opens up. 3. Click on the "FIND" button in the flap. (About halfway across.) 4. You get a bluey purply window with the title "Load A Project" in a colour that doesn't contrast very well. You will notice "Please select a project". On the left you have a choice of Bobs SuperSiwki or three others. Click on Bobs SuperSwiki. This identifies a collection of projects you can load from the net. 5. You'll get a message about initialising network drivers, and then the cursor will get a sort of hollow start beside it. This means "don't even think of doing anything else until this star goes away". 6. Eventually, if all the necessary machines are up, you'll get a list of projects in the right-hand pane. Look for "LearningMorphic.015.pr". Click on that to select it. 7. You'd really like to copy that to your disc so you can use it over and over again. You aren't given that choice. Bring up the menu and select "load as project". 8. Squeak downloads the project and opens it. Presto chango, you are inside a BookMorph (think of it as Squeak's answer to PowerPoint) reading a tutorial about Morphic where you can try things out. Click on the little ">" sign just below the centre of the title to move to the next page. You might also like to try some of the other projects there.

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