[Vm-dev] Re: [Pharo-project] how to change the default size of the Pharo host windows?

[Andreas Raab]

On 5/18/2010 1:36 PM, Igor Stasenko wrote:
> With such excuse, were ending up with a hacky shell scripts - an
> ultimately afwul way to access
> these attributes. It should be easier :)
>
> Its been always easy to make a mess:
> Array setFormat: 88888.
> Array new.
> bye-bye vm&  image.
>
> Just give developers freedom, and then it is their own responsibility
> to not make mess out of it, not yours.

This isn't about "making a mess", it's about responsibilities. 
Currently, the VM and only the VM is responsible for handling the image 
file. This has several advantages because it allows some rather unsual 
'file handling' on some platforms like Android (where there's not even 
an image file per se). Contrary to which, computing the class format is 
something that is within the responsibility of the image and not the VM.

Of course, that could be changed - we could have some 'self-writing' and 
even 'self-reading' image code (the latter is a bit tricky, but not too 
much actually) that relieves the VM from having to ever read or write an 
image file, and that would be fine. But the point here is that the 
current distribution of responsibilities is such that the VM owns that 
part and it's got absolutely nothing to do with 'developers freedom' 
(you can after all change the VM!).

Cheers,
   - Andreas