[Newbies] vms and images

[Johann Hibschman]

I just tried to get a new Squeak environment up and running, and it
reminded me of some things I was wondering about. This is all in the
context of http://squeak.org/Download/.

1. I can't find a link to the current image/changes set on the
download page. Everything points to the all-in-one, which is good for
the total beginner, but not so good for the mere rank amateur. For
example, the link under "Image File" points to the all-in-one.

2. Looking at http://www.squeakvm.org, I can't find any description of
the difference between the "Cog VM" and the "Stack VM", which makes me
worry some. Choices without any information are off-putting. I'd
suggest that the "stable binaries" be listed first on the page, then
the "continuous build" ones listed afterwards, if that's what you'd
recommend a beginner go with.

3. If I persist in looking for the image file, I can follow the link
to the FTP site, but then I have two choices: "Squeak" and
"SqueakCore", and nothing has set me up to understand the difference
between these two.

4. In general, I'd suggest having direct links to a single current
image and a single current VM for each platform, rather than going
through squeakvm.org and FTP.

So, what is the difference between the Cog VM and the Stack VM? I have
a vague feeling that Cog is the "new thing", which leaves Stack to be
the "old thing", but that's just inference. Is Cog a register machine
and Stack a stack machine, under the hood?

Regards,
Johann