[Vm-dev] VM Maker: VMMaker.oscog-eem.281.mcz

[David T. Lewis]

On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 01:35:55PM -0700, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>  
> On 04.04.2013, at 13:25, Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 3:17 AM, Nicolas Cellier <nicolas.cellier.aka.nice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  
> > Yes, I always wanted to ask what oops signed-ness was good for?
> 
> An undeclared variable in C has the type "int". So in theory you could leave out pretty much all type declarations in the generated code, making it more readable.
> 
> (Not sure if that was actually the reason. Likely the original implementers were not aware of the dangers of signed vs unsigned in C)
> 
> - Bert -
> 

You are probably right that it was just a default data type.

As far as the dangers of signed vs unsigned, my guess is that the issue was
simply of no practical consequence at the time. I was not there to witness
it, but I imagine Dan Ingalls developing the Squeak VM in a flash of creative
inspiration over a very short period of time. The target machines had 32-bit
integers and pointers, and large object memories would not have been an
realistic concern. There would have been no reason to put a lot of time and
energy into worrying about the issue back then.

Dave