Hi Pharo-ites,
I'm working on a port of Pharo to the Java Virtual Machine called Redline Smalltalk.
(read more here: http://jamesladdcode.com/?p=323)
I'm wanting to port every single class over time, but initially enough to get the
compiler working and have a minimum runtime.
Of the 1600+/- classes which are those necessary to make a small workable compiler
and runtime environment?
Hi, James -
Bert Freudenberg forwarded this along to me, as I'm not on a Pharo mailing list.
I think you know of my JSqueak project (a.k.a. Potato) -- a Squeak VM written in Java. The image that I used with it, is the same that I always use for this kind of experiment -- mini.image built in Squeak 2.2.
The reason it is so cool is that it includes browser, editor, compiler, inspector debugger, and files -- everything you need for self-support. Plus it has the decompiler, and special temp-name hack, so you can actually browse sources with temp names before any file system works. My favorite thing about this image is that although it is only 600k, if you decompile all its sources, it comprises over 850k of Smalltalk, so it's like a compressed version of the sources with a full-function IDE thrown in for free ;-).
As I said, the image is about 600k, of which 240k is code -- 202 classes (x2 if you count the metas) with 4590 methods. This should be a good guide for you in choosing classes to start with.
You can actually run this image live in JSqueak on the web if you have Java installed and the planets are aligned correctly...
Another interesting statistic is that the Java .jar file is only 433k, including not only the VM, but also the entire image! This is possible because the image is so small that the pointers in it are mostly zeroes, so it compresses nicely. I just checked that this runs, and was happy to see that it putts along at 21 million bytecodes/sec on my laptop.
I haven't looked recently, but I think you'll find Mini2.2.image or something like it in the same place where all the historical releases of Squeak are kept. Let me know if you can't find it.
Have fun with your project! I hope this helps
- Dan
Locked
