In message <20050917113345.E874F83836 at sarg.ryerson.ca>
          Dave Mason <dmason at sarg.ryerson.ca> wrote:

> I am working on a high-quality static compiler that currently accepts
> Java class files as input.  I have a Masters student looking for a
> project, and I was thinking that it might not be *too* much work to
> re-target VMMaker to generate Java or Java class files.  This would
> possibly make squeak even more portable, and would provide a good
> test-bed for my compiler.
> 
> Opinions (pro and con, technical and philosophical) welcome.

Urk. Please, no.

For a start, it wouldn't make Squeak even more portable (to the best of
my knowledge) since Squeak has been ported to just about every machine
that ever existed. I'm not entirely certain but I think the Difference
Engine at the London Science Museum managed 3+4 doit :-)

Next, consider the appalling overheads. So far as I can work out the
typical java vm and support libraries appear to occupy many hundreds of
megabytes.

<sounds of tim banging head on desk and weeping 'make it go away, oh
the pain, the humanity'>

tim
--
Tim Rowledge, tim at rowledge.org, http://www.rowledge.org/tim
In computer science, we stand on each other's feet.  - Brian Reid