Spoon progress 15 April 2005: inert method deletion details and next steps

Craig Latta craig at netjam.org
Fri Apr 14 23:33:49 UTC 2006


Hi all--

	Now that I've been living with it for a while, here are a few details 
on the shrinking technique I mentioned a couple of months ago (where 
methods that haven't been run recently get reclaimed by the garbage 
collector). Also, at the end, are some notes on what I'm doing now and 
my next steps.

	When I did the earlier imprinting work, I added two bytes to the 
compiled method trailer format. One bit in those bytes indicates whether 
the virtual machine has run the method (the other fifteen are for 
recording the method's linear version). I changed the virtual machine to 
set that bit every time it runs a method. By clearing that bit on all 
methods, then examining them later after running the system for some 
duration, one can tell all the methods which were run over that 
duration. A method without that bit set is "inert".

	I extended the garbage collector with an alternative mark phase that 
doesn't mark or trace inert methods (with the exception of methods 
associated with currently-active contexts). References to inert methods 
are replaced with nil. This leaves some method dictionaries with nils 
where methods used to be.

	My typical development mode so far has been to use a "full" object 
memory equipped with remote-messaging tools to control a target object 
memory over a network. This lets me make changes to the target with 
impunity. In particular, I don't have to worry about the target getting 
wedged because I've broken the user interface, because I'm using another 
system's user interface. I've got a remote system browser, debugger, 
process browser, and workspace. The remote system browser uses the 
master system's compiler, and transfer methods directly into the target, 
so the target need not have a compiler (or ClassBuilder). No class names 
are ever exchanged between master and target, and source code is 
completely optional.

	I changed the target system's Object>>doesNotUnderstand: so that, 
before raising an exception, it first attempts to install the missing 
method from the connected master system. If installation is successful, 
it resends the method and carries on. I changed method lookup in the 
virtual machine so that when a nil is encountered where an inert method 
used to be, it is handled as a message-not-understood. So, the master 
system effectively acts as a virtual memory for the target, providing 
missing methods inline as they are encountered.
	
	In the past (before the garbage collector changes), a new target system 
was created as a copy of the master system. I would then connect master 
and target, and use the remote tools in the master to shrink the target 
manually. I've done two passes that way; the first took three months of 
work in 2003, the second took two weeks of work in 2005. The reason I've 
made multiple passes is that I kept realizing significant system 
features I'd forgotten to include before I started shrinking (e.g., 
remote debugging), and it'd be much more work to retrofit it into the 
target than to just shrink a new master copy. Since there will probably 
always be new fundamental things to add, I decided I ought to just make 
the shrinking process more automatic.

	Now I've got a class in the master that can automatically gut the 
target in 30 minutes. It invokes code in the target that can throw out 
entire "inert classes" (classes which have no references and no 
non-inert methods). I got rid of the entirety of Morphic this way, for 
example, without having to understand anything about how Morphic works.

***

	In January I wrote a module-aware webserver for the target, to which 
the web-based Spoon installer will redirect the user after downloading 
and starting the system. The user will then be able to discover and 
select modules to load and unload, make snapshots, quit, etc. Currently 
I'm working on a Naiad module which installs the ClassBuilder (for 
manipulating existing classes in the target). (Naiad is Spoon's module 
system.)

	After that I plan to:

-	make a module which installs every last bit of 3.8 final, just to show 
that one can recreate familiar old systems

-	make modules which install the VM construction tools

-	make a VM from a Spoon system with those modules in it

-	throw away the VMs and object memories that I started with!

-	make modules for other things I want to use (Quoth, Chronos, Weather 
on Display, Tweak, etc. etc.)


	Ideally, I'd like the new modules to contain well-factored and 
highly-readable expressions of the ideas of the old subsystems, rather 
than just blind repackagings, but we'll see... it's tempting to just 
imprint things to save time. :)  (For more about imprinting, see [1].)


	thanks,

-C

[1]

http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/spoon/2004-October/000061.html

-- 
Craig Latta
improvisational musical informaticist
www.netjam.org
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]




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