Eliminating superclass lookup in the VM (and dynamic composition of behavior)

David Simmons david.simmons at smallscript.com
Thu Dec 12 08:48:29 UTC 2002


<g>

Now you're talking. This is the concept in S#, etc behind "managed objects".
Where one can completely control the entire binding/dispatching process from
start to finish. While still having the option of utilizing hi-perf caching
provided by the VM if you want it.

Effectively allowing the VM to merely provide some "optimized" special
(common) case solutions for binding/dispatching.

-- Dave S. [SmallScript Corp]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SmallScript for the AOS & .NET Platforms
David.Simmons at SmallScript.com
http://www.smallscript.org


> -----Original Message-----
> From: squeak-dev-admin at lists.squeakfoundation.org [mailto:squeak-dev-
> admin at lists.squeakfoundation.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Pair
> Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 5:29 PM
> To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Subject: RE: Eliminating superclass lookup in the VM (and dynamic
> composition of behavior)
> 
> > Once you have a conceptual model with nice properties, the
> > implementation is just a "technical exercise", and it can of
> > course be done in different ways. Typically you encounter the
> > same space-performance trade-off as in nearly all the other
> > kind of implementations. As an example, just consider traits:
> 
> Sure, but from my perspective, the VM is currently implementing a rigid
> conceptual model.  If we can get that out of the VM, or at least make it
> cleaner to override that behavior, then it's much easier to play around
> with other concepts in behavior composition...and that's what I'm after.
> 
> With regard to how behavior is bound to a given message, perhaps the
> only assumption that we should make (in the VM) is that we can make no
> assumptions.
> 
> - Stephen





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