[BUG] Low Space problem in 3.0 (and 3.1.3696)

Stephan Rudlof sr at evolgo.de
Tue Feb 27 03:56:44 UTC 2001


"Norton, Chris" wrote:
> 
> Bob Arning [arning at charm.net] is rumored to have written:
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> "I seem to remember some years ago using Smalltalk VSE on NT. Smalltalk
> garbageCollect or its equivalent reported some *really* large number, either
> gigabytes or 100's of megabytes (on a machine with 32 meg of real memory).
> When something started using too much memory, the closest indication one got
> was pronounced sluggishness and, if you listened closely, a disk drive
> earning its paycheck."
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> That is my experience also with VSE (I've been using it for almost 6 years).
> One thing that VSE does that is really cool is that it returns a walkback
> quickly (stack overflow)  when you have an infinite loop.  I don't have the
> faintest idea how it does this, but I think Squeak could benefit greatly
> from this.  Currently, if you accidentally code an infinite loop (e.g.
> method A calling method B, which calls method A), Squeak goes off into
> never-never land for a looooong time.  Then it reports low space.  If you
> accidentally abandon or close this walkback, your image gets hosed (well it
> hangs anyway).  I hate it when this happens!
> 
> If one of you excellent VM / Interpreter gurus would care to improve this
> behavior, I'd be very pleased!  :-)

I see principal problems here, keyword 'Halteproblem' or how to compute if a
program stops. There isn't any general solution...
I think, the practical solution to press Alt-. isn't so bad, if you want to
interrupt a potentially endless loop.
In spite of this the behaviour in the walkback case could probably be
improved...

Greetings,

Stephan

> 
> Cheers,
> 
> ---==> Chris

-- 
Stephan Rudlof (sr at evolgo.de)
   "Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis.
    You can't simply say, 'Today I will be brilliant.'"
    -- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3





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