Performance profiling results...

Tim Rowledge tim at sumeru.stanford.edu
Wed Sep 26 05:36:21 UTC 2001


Marcus Denker wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Sep 22, 2001 at 05:38:12PM -0400, Scott A Crosby wrote:
> 
> > How do I compile a new VM?
>From a working system as downloaded, make sure it is at update level
4343 or thereabouts. Get the VMMaker stuff from
http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim/pooters/SqFiles/deltas - get
platforsm20010922.zip  & VMMaker-3-1-version2.rel1.cs (or something like
that - it'll be obvious)
File in the changeset and unzip the zip. It should become a directory
called platforms in your cwd.

do `VMMakerTool openInWorld`

drag plugins from the leftmost list into either the internal plugins
list or the external plugins list - or leave them in the leftmost list
to avoid making them. You need many of them in order to work at all, but
you can live without Klatt, Mpeg3, Squeak3D, sound*, serial, midi,
joystick. Press the `generate all` button and wait a few moments. You
should now have a source tree in a directory called `src`
Unfortunately, due to a serious weakness in Squeak's file handling, you
will need to set executable permissions for some of the files in
src/utils and src/configure (Rob - is that all? I'm a long way from my
unix machine right now.

Then, stealing from Markus

> 4. read BUILD.UnixSqueak
> 5. to compile the vm do
>                mkdir build
>                cd build
                ../src/configure
>                make
>    and you will have a brand new vm in your build-dir.
Remember to cp squeak and *.so to your working directory so you can use them...

> Stage III: testing a VM inside the image.
> ----------
> 
> Yes, there is really a reason to write a VM in Squeak (or SLANG).
> (Besides not wanting to write C, of course. But writing SLANG is
> like writing C with Smalltalk syntax, so this point is somewhat
> questionable anyway...)
> The real reason: You can develop and *DEBUG* the VM inside Squeak!
> 
> For more, see the class comment of "InterpreterSimulator".
This is really a very important point. Being able to run the altered VM
in simulation is stunningly useful when inventing new and exciting ways
to crash your machine.

I should also add that there was a project at Interval once to try to
make Slang much more complete, but like so many other things it was
thrown away :-(

tim






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