Ron Teitelbaum wrote:
> The performance improvements of a Strongtalk VM appear to be quite
> substantial.

Indeed, but you can get the same results by getting a faster machine and
running Squeak on that.

> There are a number of other things that interest me, including
> the compiling of code based on what code is used.

My own interest in this kind of thing is not new:
http://www.merlintec.com/old-self-interest/msg00190.html

> It would be difficult,
> considering the people involved in the strongtalk project and given Dan's
> comments, to dismiss this opportunity with, "been there, done that".

People have worked hard in the past with the expectation that our
community would adopt their work (see first exceptions package, modules
for 3.3, various GUI enhancements) and then became very frustrated when
that failed to happen. My intention is not at all to discourage such a
project.

> I
> assume that the Strongtalk community will develop with or without Squeak,

Is that true? I am asking because I really have no idea. In the past Sun
has tended to release stuff as open source when it no longer has any
interest in investing in it further and the developers have been
diverted to work full time on Java related things.

> the real question is should we as a community work closely with strongtalk
> so that a strongtalking squeak vm is an option, even if it is not fully
> adopted by the community?

"We as a community" can't really do anything to help. But a few of us as
individuals have the needed knowledge for such a project and I am sure
that anyone doing it will be able to find the information they need
here, in #squeak and on the vm list.

> I do understand the argument of compatibility vs. performance, but
> performance should not be discounted, especially if the gains are
> significant, if this community is ready to move into business application
> development.  

Note that I have focused on the performance side of things and mostly
ignored compatibility. But the community is large (far larger than you
would think from just looking at squeak-dev, at least) and diverse so
people have different interests. So one person feels that Squeak must
have native widgets or it will die while another likes that the GUI is
identical on all platforms. Another would like access to all the neat
libraries in their OS while someone else wants to run Squeak on the raw
hardware and prefers plug-ins developed in Squeak itself. So I don't
think it is possible for the community to move in any particular
direction.

-- Jecel