Q1: <primitive: 110> is the Smalltalk-80 form for saying the expression is implemented by a primitive in the virtual machine.
All the method arguments and current context are passed to the primitive method.
The primitive methods are those methods in PrimObject that start with p followed by a number. For example:
public PrimObject p110(PrimObject receiver, PrimContext context) {
// ==
return receiver.equals(context.argumentAt(0)) ? PrimObject.TRUE : PrimObject.FALSE;
}
To add a new primitive (which there should be a special reason for) you simply create a new
pNN method. The convention is to comment the first line of the primitive with the selector it implements. In the case above
that selector is '=='
Q2: Use Java or Roll our own
Given the specific example of Dictionary there would be a class that implements the protocol of Dictionary as defined by
Smalltalk-80, however, the backing object (javaValue) would be a HashMap. This approach ensures the object people deal
with looks and feels like a proper Smalltalk object even though it uses a Java object underneath.
On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 11:29 PM, kabelo moiloa
<[hidden email]> wrote:
In some of the source files, I see lines like this <primitive: 110>, what do these lines mean, where are they implemented? Also when we implement something like Dictionary, can we use java.util.HashMap or do we roll our own.
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