[Vm-dev] VM_VERSION triplet

[David T. Lewis]

Hi David,

On Sat, Nov 21, 2020 at 11:18:46AM +0100, stes at PANDORA.BE wrote:
> 
> I understand that the VM version has no relation to the Squeak image
> (the version of the Smalltalk image file).
> 
> However there is a relation between the VM version and the VMmaker used to
> generate the files in the OpenSmalltalk repository.
> 

Yes. And just to be clear, in the case of the interpreter VM it would
be the squeakvm.org Subversion repository. There is a very out date copy
of those sources in the OpenSmalltalk repository, which is useful as
a convenient reference, but please don't use it to build a VM.

> If I understand correctly it is in fact good style to use VMmaker yourself,
> to create one's own set of sources.
> 

I don't know if it's any better or worse as a policy, but I would
certainly encourage you to do it if you have an interest.

For an opensmalltalk to use with the latest Squeak images, follow
the instructions and use the scripts in opensmalltalk-vm/image/ to
make an up to date VMMaker image. That image will have open workspaces
that explain how to generate the code (and many other things of
interest, well worth a look).

For an interpreter VM, follow the instructions for "How to build a
standard VM with Squeak on Linux" at http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6177.
This gives step by step instructions for the process.

> For the moment I just checkout the Git sources but those are created by VMmaker
> (the output of VMmaker) so it makes sense to use VMmaker instead yourself.
> 

Either way is fine. The advantage of checking out the sources
from git or subversion is that it is easy, and you are working with
a known good set of sources. But if you are interested in doing
the code generation yourself I would certainly encourage you to
give it a try.

> Anyway sorry for the noise on this list ...
>

Not at all!!! Thanks for asking.

Dave