[squeak-dev] re: The solution of

K. K. Subramaniam subbukk at gmail.com
Mon Aug 11 16:29:45 UTC 2008


On Sunday 10 Aug 2008 2:02:53 pm Craig Latta wrote:
>       I happen to be interested in creating object memories which are
> self-sustaining (growable), rather than one-off object memories suitable
> only for specific predetermined tasks. So the real question for me is:
> for an object memory which is self-sustaining after creation, where is
> the optimal compromise between "primal" (small) and useful? I don't
> think anyone has ever answered that question before, not at PARC and not
> since.
I like Spoon's minimalist approach. To me, a primal machine (VM+image) is not 
necessarily the smallest machine. It is the smallest that has enough objects 
to create a better machine. If the knowledge about creating a primal image 
can be encoded in the VM itself, then when squeak is started without an 
image, a primal image can be generated on the fly and the programmer can 
build a better image.

An analogy is http://www.annexia.org/forth that shows how to bootstrap a 
FORTH "machine" starting with a simple (physical) machine with very few 
primitives (not even a GC) in about 2000 lines. It is written in x86 assembly 
but is small enough for a single programmer to comprehend. Anyone who wishes 
to bootstrap a FORTH environment can read it, understand it, port it to a 
target machine and build better FORTH environments (including a GC memory 
allocator).

Subbu



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