Including build instructions for the VM in the online help?

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Including build instructions for the VM in the online help?

Eliot Miranda-2
Hi All,

    someone just asked for build instructions for the VM.  It strikes me that it would be useful to include this in the VM General tab of the About Squeak tool.  But we'd have to parse the VM to find out if it was an opensalltalk VM, PyPy VM, Graal VM, SqueakJS VM, Interpreter VM etc.  Are the other VM builders interested in adding info for their VMs?  If we go this route we could also put a pointer to the About Squeak tool in the Help tool.

P.S. I suggest doing the equivalent on Pharo too.
_,,,^..^,,,_
best, Eliot


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Re: Including build instructions for the VM in the online help?

timrowledge


> On 2018-10-31, at 11:47 AM, Eliot Miranda <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
>     someone just asked for build instructions for the VM.  It strikes me that it would be useful to include this in the VM General tab of the About Squeak tool.  But we'd have to parse the VM to find out if it was an opensalltalk VM, PyPy VM, Graal VM, SqueakJS VM, Interpreter VM etc.  Are the other VM builders interested in adding info for their VMs?  If we go this route we could also put a pointer to the About Squeak tool in the Help tool.

Perhaps simpler would be a brief paragraph and a pointer to a swiki page where the reader can learn about the variety of possible VMs and further pages for each one? Less to put in the image, easier to update out of band etc etc.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Resistance is useless!  (If << 1 ohm)



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Re: Including build instructions for the VM in the online help?

Hannes Hirzel
I understand that the proposal is to generate the build instructions
("build instruction assistant") based on the particular VM running the
image on a particular OS.

I.e. if I am on a Linux 32 bit system I get the build instructions for
my particular system.

I do not need to read through difficult to understand wiki pages and
maybe deal description inaccuracies and maybe even have and copy/paste
errors.

+1 for this proposal

It might be a loadable package though through SqueakMap. But then
referenced and introduced in the help system.

--Hannes


On 10/31/18, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
>
>> On 2018-10-31, at 11:47 AM, Eliot Miranda <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>>     someone just asked for build instructions for the VM.  It strikes me
>> that it would be useful to include this in the VM General tab of the About
>> Squeak tool.  But we'd have to parse the VM to find out if it was an
>> opensalltalk VM, PyPy VM, Graal VM, SqueakJS VM, Interpreter VM etc.  Are
>> the other VM builders interested in adding info for their VMs?  If we go
>> this route we could also put a pointer to the About Squeak tool in the
>> Help tool.
>
> Perhaps simpler would be a brief paragraph and a pointer to a swiki page
> where the reader can learn about the variety of possible VMs and further
> pages for each one? Less to put in the image, easier to update out of band
> etc etc.
>
> tim
> --
> tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> Resistance is useless!  (If << 1 ohm)
>
>
>
>

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Re: Including build instructions for the VM in the online help?

Eliot Miranda-2
Hi Hannes,

On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 12:06 PM H. Hirzel <[hidden email]> wrote:
I understand that the proposal is to generate the build instructions
("build instruction assistant") based on the particular VM running the
image on a particular OS.

I was thinking of something simpler.  If one opens the About Squeak dialog, then in the VM General tab one would see something like

Virtual Machine
---------------
/Users/eliot/oscogvm/build.macos64x64/squeak.cog.spur/Squeak.app/Contents/MacOS/Squeak
Croquet Closure Cog[Spur] VM [CoInterpreterPrimitives VMMaker.oscog-eem.2461] 5.0.201810311748
Mac OS X built on Oct 31 2018 10:50:28 PDT Compiler: 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 7.0.0 (clang-700.1.76)
platform sources revision VM: 201810311748 [hidden email]:oscogvm Date: Wed Oct 31 10:48:56 2018 CommitHash: 6fee3a7 Plugins: 201810311748 [hidden email]:oscogvm
CoInterpreter VMMaker.oscog-eem.2461 uuid: b3cd33f5-6309-43a1-b669-7a1805111f34 Oct 18 2018
StackToRegisterMappingCogit VMMaker.oscog-eem.2464 uuid: 0b1fa0a3-a781-4fd5-b1cf-1809796ccbbf Oct 18 2018

To Build A Similar Virtual Machine
---------------------------------------------
Visit https://github.com/OpenSmalltalk/opensmalltalk-vm; obey the Clone or download instructions, then read the HowToBuild file in the top-level build directory for your platform(s), e.g. build.macos64x64/HowToBuild.

Hannes, including anything more than this means duplicating information and increasing maintenance load.  As it is, this will have to be changed when we reorganize the opensmalltalk-vm.  So to keep things manageable IMO we should include the build information in opensmalltalk-vm and just include pointers to that site form the image.  Since there are other VMs in use it would be good to have pointers to build information for all of them.

Tim, re a Swiki page, I think that's also more maintenance effort.  The Swiki VM documentation is woefully out-of-date and disorganized.  I';d prefer to see it replaced by pointers to properly self-documented and up-to-date repositories.  


I.e. if I am on a Linux 32 bit system I get the build instructions for
my particular system.

I do not need to read through difficult to understand wiki pages and
maybe deal description inaccuracies and maybe even have and copy/paste
errors.

+1 for this proposal

It might be a loadable package though through SqueakMap. But then
referenced and introduced in the help system.

--Hannes


On 10/31/18, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>
>> On 2018-10-31, at 11:47 AM, Eliot Miranda <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>>     someone just asked for build instructions for the VM.  It strikes me
>> that it would be useful to include this in the VM General tab of the About
>> Squeak tool.  But we'd have to parse the VM to find out if it was an
>> opensalltalk VM, PyPy VM, Graal VM, SqueakJS VM, Interpreter VM etc.  Are
>> the other VM builders interested in adding info for their VMs?  If we go
>> this route we could also put a pointer to the About Squeak tool in the
>> Help tool.
>
> Perhaps simpler would be a brief paragraph and a pointer to a swiki page
> where the reader can learn about the variety of possible VMs and further
> pages for each one? Less to put in the image, easier to update out of band
> etc etc.
>
> tim
> --
> tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> Resistance is useless!  (If << 1 ohm)
>
>
>
>



--
_,,,^..^,,,_
best, Eliot


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Re: Including build instructions for the VM in the online help?

timrowledge


> On 2018-10-31, at 12:19 PM, Eliot Miranda <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Tim, re a Swiki page, I think that's also more maintenance effort.  The Swiki VM documentation is woefully out-of-date and disorganized.  I';d prefer to see it replaced by pointers to properly self-documented and up-to-date repositories.  

If there's a better place then we should absolutely use it; and maybe update the swiki to point to that instead. I totally agree about the lamentable state fo too much of the swiki. I try to fix bits every now and then but more input from more people would always be nice to see.

tim

Give a man a compliment, he’ll feel good for a day.
Teach a man to fish for compliments and he’ll never feel good enough for the rest of his life.


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Re: Including build instructions for the VM in the online help?

David T. Lewis
In reply to this post by Eliot Miranda-2
+1

That is a great idea.

Dave

> Hi Hannes,
>
> On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 12:06 PM H. Hirzel <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
>
>> I understand that the proposal is to generate the build instructions
>> ("build instruction assistant") based on the particular VM running the
>> image on a particular OS.
>>
>
> I was thinking of something simpler.  If one opens the About Squeak
> dialog,
> then in the VM General tab one would see something like
>
> Virtual Machine
> ---------------
> /Users/eliot/oscogvm/build.macos64x64/squeak.cog.spur/Squeak.app/Contents/MacOS/Squeak
> Croquet Closure Cog[Spur] VM [CoInterpreterPrimitives
> VMMaker.oscog-eem.2461] 5.0.201810311748
> Mac OS X built on Oct 31 2018 10:50:28 PDT Compiler: 4.2.1 Compatible
> Apple
> LLVM 7.0.0 (clang-700.1.76)
> platform sources revision VM: 201810311748
> [hidden email]:oscogvm
> Date: Wed Oct 31 10:48:56 2018 CommitHash: 6fee3a7 Plugins: 201810311748
> [hidden email]:oscogvm
> CoInterpreter VMMaker.oscog-eem.2461 uuid:
> b3cd33f5-6309-43a1-b669-7a1805111f34 Oct 18 2018
> StackToRegisterMappingCogit VMMaker.oscog-eem.2464 uuid:
> 0b1fa0a3-a781-4fd5-b1cf-1809796ccbbf Oct 18 2018
>
> To Build A Similar Virtual Machine
> ---------------------------------------------
> Visit https://github.com/OpenSmalltalk/opensmalltalk-vm; obey the Clone or
> download instructions, then read the HowToBuild file in the top-level
> build
> directory for your platform(s), e.g. build.macos64x64/HowToBuild.
>
> Hannes, including anything more than this means duplicating information
> and
> increasing maintenance load.  As it is, this will have to be changed when
> we reorganize the opensmalltalk-vm.  So to keep things manageable IMO we
> should include the build information in opensmalltalk-vm and just include
> pointers to that site form the image.  Since there are other VMs in use it
> would be good to have pointers to build information for all of them.
>
> Tim, re a Swiki page, I think that's also more maintenance effort.  The
> Swiki VM documentation is woefully out-of-date and disorganized.  I';d
> prefer to see it replaced by pointers to properly self-documented and
> up-to-date repositories.
>
>
>> I.e. if I am on a Linux 32 bit system I get the build instructions for
>> my particular system.
>>
>> I do not need to read through difficult to understand wiki pages and
>> maybe deal description inaccuracies and maybe even have and copy/paste
>> errors.
>>
>> +1 for this proposal
>>
>> It might be a loadable package though through SqueakMap. But then
>> referenced and introduced in the help system.
>>
>> --Hannes
>>
>>
>> On 10/31/18, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >> On 2018-10-31, at 11:47 AM, Eliot Miranda <[hidden email]>
>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Hi All,
>> >>
>> >>     someone just asked for build instructions for the VM.  It strikes
>> me
>> >> that it would be useful to include this in the VM General tab of the
>> About
>> >> Squeak tool.  But we'd have to parse the VM to find out if it was an
>> >> opensalltalk VM, PyPy VM, Graal VM, SqueakJS VM, Interpreter VM etc.
>> Are
>> >> the other VM builders interested in adding info for their VMs?  If we
>> go
>> >> this route we could also put a pointer to the About Squeak tool in
>> the
>> >> Help tool.
>> >
>> > Perhaps simpler would be a brief paragraph and a pointer to a swiki
>> page
>> > where the reader can learn about the variety of possible VMs and
>> further
>> > pages for each one? Less to put in the image, easier to update out of
>> band
>> > etc etc.
>> >
>> > tim
>> > --
>> > tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
>> > Resistance is useless!  (If << 1 ohm)
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>
> --
> _,,,^..^,,,_
> best, Eliot
>
>



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Re: Including build instructions for the VM in the online help?

Stéphane Rollandin
In reply to this post by Eliot Miranda-2
+1 too

Stef