On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 12:38 AM, Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda at gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Craig Latta <craig at netjam.org> wrote:
>
>> [snip]
>>     As for whether to produce an object memory statically and then set it
>> running, or transform an object memory which is always running... I think
>> the resulting memory will need to load modules live anyway, so one might as
>> well do all the transformations that way. Perhaps this is simply an
>> aesthetic choice.
>>
>
> Surely repeatability mandates that one roduce an object memory statically
> and then set it running?  Because of things like delays the always running
> memory is almost never in a predictable state, so one always ends up with
> different bits even if they represent the same functionality.
>
> E.
>

Maybe you could get the repeatability with a process that is roughly:

a) write the spec for the capability of the image (a method that exercises
everything you want to be able to do)
b) use the class/method copying & DNU trickery and do the runtime analysis
to figure out the classes and methods needed to support that capability
c) do something a little more surgical to build a new image by copying over
the behaviors and methods, but construct the processes and stacks more
deliberately (so you aren't so tied to the running image's state)

I'd think in this way you could do something that was reproducible to the
extent that resulting image was only dependent on the running image for its
behaviors and other necessary objects (various singletons and whatnot), but
otherwise not affected by various processes and random other things that
might be in that image.  Once you had (b) and (c) mostly ironed out, it
would be a process of refining the specification in (a) to get to a suitable
minimal image.

- Stephen
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