On 15 February 2013 10:52, Craig Latta <craig at netjam.org> wrote:
>
> Hi--
>
>      Hannes writes:
>
>> Thank you for your mail which gives a lot of useful detailed
>> explanations.
>
>      Sure thing.
>
>> Is the garbage collector available as a loadable package?
>
>      No, I haven't separated that from the rest of the Spoon VM changes,
> which are in the mainstream image included in recent Spoon releases.
>
>> > You imprint the unit test's code onto a minimal memory,
>>
>> With 'minimal memory' I assume you mean a minimal image while it is
>> in memory?
>
>      I'm using "memory" as shorthand for "object memory". I avoid using
> the word "image" as much as I can, because it often confuses newcomers
> when I explain Smalltalk to them. They think it has something to do with
> graphics. It's especially problematic when I'm explaining my object
> memory visualization work, which is heavily graphical.
>
>      I've had better results by evoking the model of a virtual processor
> with its own memory, especially now that many people are familiar with
> things like VMWare.
>
>> > [After a minimal imprinting unit test] we can move onto more
>> > interesting things, like graphics (or WebDAV, or...).
>>
>> With graphics you mean an [object memory] which executes graphics
>> commands?
>
>      Sure, I mean the library support for a GUI. The minimal memory is
> headless.
>
>> Yes, what other candidates do you propose as a test?
>
>      I think the minimal echo-server unit test is the only test we need,
> then we should get on to doing real work. We'll probably want some sort
> of user interface as a top priority, so I imagine support for a
> simplified Morphic, or MVC, or wxWidgets would be likely, as would
> remote text-editor access via WebDAV (and I've already written that code).
>
>      Beyond that, as now, it's up to all us motivated people to decide
> the priorities and do the work. I think I would work on the VM simulator
> next, and I'd like to get all the vm-making stuff installing,
> generating, and executing this way.
>
>
>      Frank writes:
>
>> I half and half have a problem with dissolving, just in the sense
>> that if you don't use it it's gone, only that might be, say, UI
>> wiring.
>
>      But that's fine if your goal is a minimal object memory, yes?
>
>> ...we have discussed Spoon's tech before - last time was, IIRC, "how
>> can you diff two arbitrary binary blobs?"
>
>      Sorry, I don't recall the context. Can you point me to messages in
> the squeak-dev archives, or summarize with a bit more detail?

This is in the middle of the thread:
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2012-February/163033.html

It's a conversation that I paused, because I wanted to mull over Spoon
(and then of course I got distracted by other stuff). I'll reread the
Spoon docs and see what happens in my hindbrain.

frank

>      Colin writes:
>
>> The system is too big to look at all the class-level dependencies all
>> at once.
>
>      Okay, I think we disagree here. After my experience with
> interactively visualizing and exploring the entire reference graph of an
> object memory in 3D (even though it was a relatively small memory), I
> don't think the problem is too big. For those reading along who may not
> have seen my visualization work, please check out:
>
>      http://tinyurl.com/aky2gwa (thiscontext.wordpress.com)
>
>> Of course, to actually break the dependencies, yeah, we'll have to go
>> down to the level of classes and methods. But the high-level overview
>> can help us sort out priorities.
>
>      That makes sense.
>
>> Also, note that PackageInfo and class categories aren't the same
>> thing.
>
>      I know they aren't identical. My understanding was that PackageInfo
> has its basis in class categories, with some important elaborations.
> This understanding was reinforced when I saw Tobias's graphs full of
> familiar class category names. I hadn't looked at the implementation
> since it first came out, I'm reading it now.
>
>      Regardless of the subtleties, I do use Monticello (although more to
> install things, VMMaker in particular :).
>
>
>      thanks again,
>
> -C
>
> --
> Craig Latta
> www.netjam.org/resume
> +31 6 2757 7177 (SMS ok)
> + 1 415  287 3547 (no SMS)
>
>
>
>