new image format (was: Actually doing something!)

Jecel Assumpcao Jr jecel at merlintec.com
Thu Oct 20 20:01:24 UTC 2005


Tim Rowledge wrote on Wed, 19 Oct 2005 15:41:31 -0700
> Squeak is about 10 years old. Time to move from toddler to pre- 
> schooler at least. Yes, it will mean a break in being able to run old  
> images on new VMs. So what; old VMs will still be there. The  
> sourcecode is still on SVN.

I guess this is a good time to ask about Anthony Hannan's "image version
4 format" work (http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/VI4). Bryce Kampjes
mentioned incompatibilities as the reason why this is no longer being
considered for inclusion in Squeak, but reading all the documentation
and scanning quickly through the sources the only thing I noticed was
that the needed debugger changes were not finished. Am I missing
something?

-- Jecel
P.S.: from the VI4 documentation -
You should see a general speed improvement of about 25%.  Try running
macroBenchmarks #6 in this image versus a 3.2 image (the other
macroBenchmarks are not comparable because they involve compiler,
context, or interpreter code, which have changed).  Also, in '0
tinyBenchmarks' you should see about a 30% improvement in bytecode speed
and a 75% improvement in send speed.  Enjoy!!



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