Hi -

Some of you may have been following Igors efforts on HydraVM [1] which 
is an attempt to enable the use of multi-core CPUs within a single 
Squeak VM by using multiple images. Having finally had the time to play 
around with it on the weekend I was *amazed* how usable it already is in 
terms of speed (10-20% slowdown) as well as productivity.

Since the basic development process is in place (load alternative 
images, send commands, save the result) I was thinking about the next 
steps and it occurred to me that having a set of tools that can operate 
on another image would be tremendously useful. Not only for development 
inside Hydra but also for some of the people out there trying to create 
smaller images.

With a set of HydraTools you should be able to for example, rip out 
*all* of the UIs and tools that exist in an image, fix up the result and 
be able to try loading the UI framework from first principles.

So my question is basically this: Is there a tool set (browser, senders, 
implementors, maybe debugger) that has "enough" of an abstraction about 
its model that it would be easy to fit in the Hydra channel protocol to 
make them work? E.g., there needs to be a well-understood protocol that 
is being used to access the underlying classes and that can be put onto 
a HydraVM channel to communicate with another image. If anyone knows 
about a good starting point that would be great.

[1]http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2008-February/125150.html

Cheers,
   - Andreas