On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 11:33:41PM +0000, commits at source.squeak.org wrote:
> Eliot Miranda uploaded a new version of Kernel to project The Trunk:
> http://source.squeak.org/trunk/Kernel-eem.885.mcz
> 
> ==================== Summary ====================
> 
> Name: Kernel-eem.885
> Author: eem
> Time: 19 November 2014, 3:33:32.003 pm
> UUID: 6e239e5b-b957-4ff6-a3ce-bb3ee10cf826
> Ancestors: Kernel-eem.884
> 
> Steal the Smalltalk-80 V2 definition of SmallInteger>>
> digitAt: which doesn't assume max digit length.
> 

Interesting. The 32-bit optimization in digitAt: has been in Squeak since
1999, but it seems to have very little performance benefit on my system
(measured on a somewhat random combination of AMD Ubuntu with 64 bit image
and interpreter VM to prevent any misleading optimizations).

Assuming that the 1999 optimizations were important for at least some
platforms, I tried to adapt that method to accommodate 32 and 64 bit integer
sizes. The result was slower than any of the previous implementations.

So +1 for adopting the unoptimized Smalltalk-80 V2 definition of SmallInteger>>digitAt:

Dave