Spoon progress 15 January 2006: new minimum, new system tracer

>
> Hi all--
>
> I've reached a new minimum snapshot size (167,224 bytes uncompressed,
> the previous one from 2003 was 211,504 bytes uncompressed).
>
> That's for a system which supports remote browsing. I've also conceived
> a new design for the system tracer, one that implements it as a feature
> of the simulator (which didn't exist when the current tracer was
> written). With this tracer one will be able to write new snapshots
> without having to trace the object memory in which the tracer is
> running, and with certainty that every object in the result was required
> for an interpreter to function.
>
> I suspect that the smallest "graceful" object memory (e.g., one that
> just quits) will be something like 1000 bytes. Using Spoon's object
> memory visualization tools, I've noticed that even the "3 plus 4"
> snapshot from the Fenix project (15,192 bytes uncompressed) has a lot of
> unnecessary stuff in it (e.g., Characters).
>
>
> thanks,
>
> -C
>
> http://netjam.org/spoon
>
> --
> Craig Latta
> improvisational musical informaticist
> www.netjam.org
> Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]
>
>
>
>

> I also tried looking on the Wiki for the version of SystemTracer  
> that the
> group doing the conversion to 64 bits uses.  I didn't find that  
> either.  But
> perhaps if I had been willing to download their whole tar I would  
> have found
> it.
>
> It is kind of a shame that there's no central repository that  
> SqueakMap uses
> rather than trusting a bunch of urls that apparently  belong to random
> people and companies.

>
>  > By the way I've found that it's impossible to get ANY version of the
>  > system tracer.
>
> I'd expect to find it in the VMMaker package on SqueakMap, along with
> the rest of the platform-independent virtual machine implementation.
>
>
> -C
>
> --
> Craig Latta
> improvisational musical informaticist
> www.netjam.org
> Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]
>
>
>
>

> By the way I've found that it's impossible to get ANY version of  
> the system
> tracer.
>
> The original system tracer isn't available, on SqueakMap and the  
> url that's
> supposed to be hosting SystemTracer2 and related utilities
> (LargeCollections) no longer exists.
>
> I also tried looking on the Wiki for the version of SystemTracer  
> that the
> group doing the conversion to 64 bits uses.  I didn't find that  
> either.  But
> perhaps if I had been willing to download their whole tar I would  
> have found
> it.
>
> It is kind of a shame that there's no central repository that  
> SqueakMap uses
> rather than trusting a bunch of urls that apparently  belong to random
> people and companies.
>
> Josh Scholar
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Craig Latta" <[hidden email]>
> To: <[hidden email]>
> Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 7:50 PM
> Subject: Spoon progress 15 January 2006: new minimum, new system  
> tracer
>
>
>>
>> Hi all--
>>
>> I've reached a new minimum snapshot size (167,224 bytes uncompressed,
>> the previous one from 2003 was 211,504 bytes uncompressed).
>>
>> That's for a system which supports remote browsing. I've also  
>> conceived
>> a new design for the system tracer, one that implements it as a  
>> feature
>> of the simulator (which didn't exist when the current tracer was
>> written). With this tracer one will be able to write new snapshots
>> without having to trace the object memory in which the tracer is
>> running, and with certainty that every object in the result was  
>> required
>> for an interpreter to function.
>>
>> I suspect that the smallest "graceful" object memory (e.g., one that
>> just quits) will be something like 1000 bytes. Using Spoon's object
>> memory visualization tools, I've noticed that even the "3 plus 4"
>> snapshot from the Fenix project (15,192 bytes uncompressed) has a  
>> lot of
>> unnecessary stuff in it (e.g., Characters).
>>
>>
>> thanks,
>>
>> -C
>>
>> http://netjam.org/spoon
>>
>> --
>> Craig Latta
>> improvisational musical informaticist
>> www.netjam.org
>> Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>

> On 16-Jan-06, at 10:26 AM, Craig Latta wrote:
> > I've written enough of the new tracer to write an object memory  
> > which adds 3 and 4, then quits. The snapshot[1] is 1,772 bytes  
> > uncompressed. Without using the simulator or visualization tools,  
> > about the most interesting thing you can do with it is watch it not  
> > crash. :)  But I do think this is a fun proof-of-concept.
> Bloody good show! Suggestion for a Neat Demo; extend this a little to
> a) print out the answer as the return code or to stdio or whatever.  
> There are some prims that should help do that without too much extra  
> image code. I think. Maybe. Easy to add a primPrintStringToTerminal  
> anyway
> b) accept simple equations as startup args
> Making a little Smalltalk commandline caculator app. Won't be 1700  
> bytes but surely less than 16kb.