Tim Rowledge wrote:

>  And of course there is always the topic of Ian's PhD thesis, 
>generating native
>  directly from the Smalltalk compiler. Now that our machines need 
>128Mb ram just
>  to boot the OS, the space costs of this approach seem somehow less worrying!

Exactly.  It should have been obvious years ago that the day would eventually
come when the code size expansion of Smalltalk compiled directly to native code
would asymptotically approach irrelevancy.  That day will be here 
soon, if it has
not already arrived.

Native code is necessary not simply for performance, but for **two 
way** interoperability
between Smalltalk and other languages (e.g, so C can call Smalltalk 
code in a DLL).
This does not mean that all Smalltalk code should always be native, 
just that having the
option at least for selected methods, classes or modules (packages) 
is mandatory for
widespread use of Smalltalk.

--Alan

[Hi Tim!]

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