[Vm-dev] Re: [Poll] Who is interested in, thinking about, or already contributing to a 64-bit OpenSmalltalk VM for Windows?

Wed Jul 6 07:04:06 UTC 2016

Eliot Miranda-2 wrote
> Hi All,
> 
> On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 8:06 AM, Nicolas Cellier <

> nicolas.cellier.aka.nice@

>> wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>>
>> 2016-07-05 15:40 GMT+02:00 marcel.taeumel &lt;

> Marcel.Taeumel@

> &gt;:
>>
>>>
>>> Nicolas Cellier wrote
>>> > I don't promise to spend any time on it, but I've inquired a bit a few
>>> > months ago.
>>> > The 1st thing required is to convert a bunch of (int) type declaration
>>> > into
>>> > sqint in platforms/win32 because they're not compatible in 64bits.
>>> >
>>> > 2016-07-05 11:20 GMT+02:00 marcel.taeumel &lt;
>>>
>>> > Marcel.Taeumel@
>>>
>>> > &gt;:
>>> >
>>> >>
>>> >> Hi, there.
>>> >>
>>> >> I happily observe the recent efforts to make 64-bit VMs stable for
>>> Linux
>>> >> and
>>> >> Mac OSX.
>>> >>
>>> >> Although Tobias and myself agreed to support the Windows platform in
>>> >> terms
>>> >> of internal and external plugins such as SqueakSSL and FilePlugin,
>>> adding
>>> >> 64-bit seems like a lot of work. We have only so much time.
>>> >>
>>> >> Who's out there interested in, thinking about, or already
>>> contributing
>>> to
>>> >> a
>>> >> 64-bit OpenSmalltalk VM for Windows?
>>> >>
>>> >> Best,
>>> >> Marcel
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> --
>>> >> View this message in context:
>>> >>
>>> http://forum.world.st/Poll-Who-is-interested-in-thinking-about-or-already-contributing-to-a-64-bit-OpenSmalltalk-VM-for-Wi-tp4904953.html
>>> >> Sent from the Squeak VM mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>> >>
>>>
>>> Hi Nicolas,
>>>
>>>
>> Hi Marcel,
>>
>>
>>> if we target Cygwin as a build environment, this might be worth
>>> noticing:
>>> https://cygwin.com/faq.html#faq.programming.64bitporting
>>>
>>>
>> As currently generated, the Spur Vm for 64 bits expects sizeof(long) ==
>> 8.
>> So it is cygwin64 x86_64 compatible, but not so much MSVC... (or
>> mingw-w64
>> variants...)
>> IMO, this is the easiest target. then we could inquire about alternate
>> compilers.
>>
> 
> This is great to hear.  So there is a model where sizeof(long) == 8?  If
> that's so, we should target it.  There's a /lot/ of work to do if we have
> to support the Win64 sizeof(long) == 4 model.
> 
>>
>>
>>> If we (eventually?) target MS Visual Studio (resp. its C compiler), the
>>> code
>>> might look different. Not sure.
>>>
>>> In the Windows (kernel) code, I noticed the use of typedefs, which we
>>> could
>>> also establish in the vm's windows-specific platform code:
>>>
>>> https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff381404(v=vs.85).aspx
>>>
>>>
>> I wonder if we could manage to write code that compiles in both Cygwin
>>> 64-bit and the (free) MS Visual C/C++ compiler:
>>> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41151
>>>
>>>
>> Yes, it's doable, it's a matter of defining the sq* types and sticking to
>> these types.
>> But that might mean revising VMMaker package to avoid direct references
>> to
>> long/unsigned long/, as well as some of the platforms/* files...
>>
> 
> There ar emote issues in the type inferencer.  It, and a significant
> ammount of code in VMMaker would have to be rewritten to support 64-bit
> sizeof(long) == 4.  I think it's infeasible given our current person
> power,
> and I don't think its wrath it.  If we can get there using cygwin ad/or
> mingw we should do so.
> 
> 
>>
>>
>>> ... or maybe MS Visual C/C++ only? It would remove Cygwin as a layer of
>>> indirection between dev tools and execution platform...  *duck-and-run*
>>> :-D
>>>
>>>
>> Using MSVC requires additional support like atomic operations (see
>> ../../platforms/Cross/vm/sqAtomicOps.h)
>>
> 
> Minor difficulty.  MSVC has support for asm.  Further, later versions are
> using clang for their compiler and that *may* just have extended asm
> support.  And do we know that MSVC doesn't support the relevant
> intrinsics?
> 
> Overall, it should be really simple (and cheap?) to setup a Windows dev
>>> environment for VM developers. Maybe for real, maybe in a VirtualBox
>>> only.
>>>
>>
> +1.  Please, something that is either arasllels or can be converted into
> Parallels.
> 
> 
>> This helps Eliot and other cross-platform VM developers to debug like
>> they
>>> are doing now.
>>>
>>
>> Using IDE has a lot of advantages, but maintaining the IDE-specific or
>> even worse IDE-version-specific project files is not sustainable
>> For these reasons, Eliot removed the Xcode projects for Mac, I don't
>> think
>> re-introducing them for windows would be a good idea.
>> Instead, I much much prefer to generate the project files via cmake.
>>
> 
> Why do we need project files?  Why do we need cmake?  I don't want to keep
> on fighting this battle, please.  Esteban is already working on the issue
> of generating the header file that generates just the defines that
> describe
> the platform facilities.  Plugins are selected via plugins.int and
> plugins.ext.  Optional compilation can be controlled with the relevant
> code
> in platforms/PLATFORM/plugins/Makefile which can test for available
> support
> libraries and abort creation if so.
> 
> We. Do. Not. Need/ A. CMake. Step. Other, Than. To. Define. The.
> Platform's. Facilities.
> 
> I. Do. Not. Want. Project. Files. Under. Any. Circumstances.
> 
> Please, I thought we had reached agreement on this when we discussed
> moving
> to github.
> 
> 
>> The question remains whether we maintain the cmakelists.txt or generate
>> them from Smalltalk (like Pharo VM)
>>
>> I like the idea of a virtual machine prepared for dev, but what about:
>> - license (unless we can redistribute windows 10?)
>> - security (download a virtual machine with unknown installed software,
>> backdoors, etc... )
>>
>>
>>> Best,
>>> Marcel
>>>
>>> --
>>> View this message in context:
>>> http://forum.world.st/Poll-Who-is-interested-in-thinking-about-or-already-contributing-to-a-64-bit-OpenSmalltalk-VM-for-Wi-tp4904953p4905015.html
>>> Sent from the Squeak VM mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>>
>>
> _,,,^..^,,,_
> best, Eliot

Hi,

oh, I did not explain it sufficiently what I mean by saying "dev
environment". I did not mean putting project files into the repository or
using cmake. No, no, no. I mean a simple document that says how to install
and configure Cygwin or Visual Studio to setup the project. There is imo no
urgent need to provide ready-made project files. A documentation about paths
and compiler flags would be a good first step.

Best,
Marcel

--
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