>>>>> "Dave" == Dave Mason <dmason at sarg.ryerson.ca> writes:

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

"not *too* much work" seems wrong to me. Sure, everything can be
done. But when you reach pointers manipulation, you will likely end up
with ugly byte arrays manipulation in Java unless you redesign whole
parts of the system.

Dave> Opinions (pro and con, technical and philosophical) welcome.

Doing it might be a lot of fun, especially as a proof of concept, and
could lead to an interesting conference article. However, trying to
base the future of Squeak on a JVM would be totally wrong IMO as
Squeak is probably already more portable than Java (are there many
places where Squeak doesn't run and where a full JVM does?). Also, the
part of the JVM you would need isn't likely to fit in small embedded
systems while Squeak does.

  Sam
-- 
Samuel Tardieu -- sam at rfc1149.net -- http://www.rfc1149.net/sam