If you look how MC copies package from remote repository to package-cache dir, you will find out , that it: - reads and parses all definitions from source package - and then writes all these definitions into a new file

while instead it could just simply copy the contents of existing file to the directory and that's it.

This actually explains why uploading VMMaker to squeaksource takes ages (and most of the times time outs), simply because on server we have this unnecessary load of read-deserialize-serialize-write cycle while it could be just read-write (copying).

I think we could make it faster by copying and then parsing only the necessary parts of package, like commit log and ancestry information, but not parsing the whole package contents.

Another approach is of course to split bloated VMMaker package into parts.. but the problem is that for building VMs there's already too many stuff there.. for example look at the configuration of cog:

package: 'FFI-Pools' with: 'FFI-Pools-eem.3'; package: 'SharedPool-Speech' with: 'SharedPool-Speech-dtl.2'; package: 'Balloon-Engine-Pools' with: 'Balloon-Engine-Pools-JB.2'; package: 'Alien-Core' with: 'Alien-Core-IgorStasenko.68'; package: 'Sound' with: 'Sound-StephaneDucasse.62'; package: 'VMConstruction-Plugins-OSProcessPlugin' with: 'VMConstruction-Plugins-OSProcessPlugin.oscog-eem.31'; package: 'Freetype-Plugin' with: 'Freetype-Plugin-IgorStasenko.61'; package: 'ObjectiveC-Plugin' with: 'ObjectiveC-Plugin-John M McIntosh.20'; package: 'Cog' with: 'Cog-eem.45'; package: 'VMMaker-oscog' with: 'VMMaker-oscog-IgorStasenko.122'; package: 'Qwaq-VMProfiling-Plugins' with: 'Qwaq-VMProfiling-Plugins-JB.5'; package: 'Applescript-Core' with: 'Applescript-Core-SeanDeNigris.2'; package: 'CMakeVMMaker' with: 'CMakeVMMaker-IgorStasenko.136' ].

but i think we can deal with it nicely.

Anyways, i think we should consider splitting VMMaker, because it goes nowhere.

For Cog VMMaker , i think we could remove an Interpreter class, which can make a package like 20% smaller, without any need of refactoring and dependency rewiring.