[Squeakfoundation]re: reviewing the simulator fixes

Bert Freudenberg bert at isg.cs.uni-magdeburg.de
Thu Jun 26 23:48:09 CEST 2003


Am Donnerstag, 26.06.03 um 20:44 Uhr schrieb Andreas Raab:

>> Why is the simulator dependent on VMMaker? curious.
>
> Helloho ;-) The VM (e.g., the actual code seen in ObjectMemory and
> Interpreter) _are_ the simulator. What the simulator classes do is 
> merely
> providing a few methods for stuff that we otherwise assume the C 
> compiler
> does (longAt: ...) including nasty things that we don't have to worry 
> about
> in Squeak (endianness anyone?).
>
> It's the "living spec" thing all along.

Absolutely. And folks who need to know do know this ;-)
But ...

> If you have VMMaker you've got the VM

... which is not obvious at all. At least I would have expected the 
"VMMaker" package to contain the VMMaker tool, not the VM source code 
itself.

> and you can't simulate the interpreter without actually having it ;-)

Of course. It's just a naming confusion, but I would find it more 
intuitive if there was a separate "VM" package containing ObjectMemory 
and Interpreter, as well as the standard plugins.

-- Bert

PS:  I wouldn't even mind if the "VM" package contained the VMMaker 
tool, too. Maybe we should just rename it?



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