[squeak-dev] Squeak VM questions

Hi folks,

I want to know the status of VM in squeak.
I have read the squeakvm.org pages and even the info it is detailed, it
is not clear enough for me.

I know that there are two types of vm builds (mainly) for i386 (32bits)
and x86_64 (64 bits) and that each of these vm can, when configured
before exporting C source code from VMMaker, interpret 32 or 64 bit
images.
Also, from the documentation, the 64 bit images are mostly of academic
interest. The 32 bit images are the main kind of images, the ones we
(almost) all use. And this 32 bit images can be interpreted with 32 or
64 bits built squeakvms.

On the other site, are the addons that different brilliant people are
contribuiting to the vm source code in order to have more capabilities
in the image. This functionality includes:

closures
jit

Now, I have an amd64 Debian GNU/Linux Lenny install and it is all 64 bit
(x86_64) and Jose Luis Redrejo has made an excellent work on building a
64bit squeakvm capable of interpret 32 bit images like the squeak and
pharo ones.

But this squeak vm hasn't support for closures (my main need) so, I
can't run pharo and the new squeak from Andreas on my amd64 machine in a
native way. I run this images on a 32 bit KVM virtual machine and so far
I am really impressed but I would like to have a native 64 bit squeakvm
with closure support.

The questions are:

¿Who are building squeak vm for the different architechtures?

I can see that the different squeak vm are hosted on different places
(smalltalk consulting, squeakvm.org, etc) and with different names
nomenclatures. This is sometimes confusing, mainly for new users (and
for old users too). ¿Can all the vm be hosted on a single place and with
a single name format?

¿What means the version 3.10 for vm? I barely understand that it is
related to the image that generated, but, if a squeak vm is to be used
for squeak and pharo, for example, shouldn't have a more neutral version
number?

¿What about the new vm implementations, like cog, exupery, stackvm, etc?
¿Are the sharing the same source code on squeakvm.org or are independent
and incompatible implementations?

¿Are plans to build and make available 64 bit versions of the vm for the
new users with recent equipment (almost all end user PC and laptops sold
are 64 bit)?

Finally I don't have to pressure anyone, because I understand that this
is done on a free time basis, but I think that this will greatly reduce
the barrier to squeak/pharo and smalltalk in general.

Thanks for all the excelent work done.

Miguel Cobá

On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 11:14:05AM -0500, Miguel Enrique Cob? Martinez wrote:
Correct, but note also that 64-bit Linux systems can run the 32-bit VM
(as long as the correct 32-bit Linux libraries are on the system). Most
64-bit Linux users are using the 32-bit VM because it is available
pre-compiled, and also because it can support a more complete set of
plugins.

> Also, from the documentation, the 64 bit images are mostly of academic
> interest. The 32 bit images are the main kind of images, the ones we
> (almost) all use. And this 32 bit images can be interpreted with 32 or
> 64 bits built squeakvms.

Yes

If you (or Jose Luis Redrejo) rebuild your VM using the latest VMMaker
from SqueakSource, you will have closure support in your 64-bit VM.

> The questions are:
>
> ??Who are building squeak vm for the different architechtures?

Not including the new developments with Exupery, Cog, etc, VMs for the
primary architectures are built by Ian, Andreas and John, see
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/2513. Currently Ian's Unix distributions
are in need of an update to add support for closures. I expect this
to happen soon (but I can't offer a date).

Currently there are no plans for this. My personal view, without having
discussed it with the platform maintainers, is that this should not be
done right now, but perhaps 3 to 6 months from now. The reason I say this
is that a number of 64-bit updates need to be done to plugins (including
FFI, sound and others) before this should be considered ready for general
use. In addition, supporting a 64-bit distribution might cause significant
extra work for the platform maintainers, so I don't want to set any
expectations here.

> Finally I don't have to pressure anyone, because I understand that this
> is done on a free time basis, but I think that this will greatly reduce
> the barrier to squeak/pharo and smalltalk in general.
>
> Thanks for all the excelent work done.
>
> Miguel Cob??
>

Thank you very much David, this is I believe generally useful
information to keep the community up to date on the state of the VM.  Is
there any way I could convince you to report back to squeak-dev say at
least quarterly on the current status of VM development work
particularly with regards to 64bit and any other changes?

I for one have been concerned with the extent to which differences
between the platform VMs have been showing up recently.  I hope this is
just a temporary issue.

Ken

<snipped Great VM status info from David prompted by questions from
Migual>

On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 12:52:46PM -0500, Ken Causey wrote:
> Thank you very much David, this is I believe generally useful
> information to keep the community up to date on the state of the VM.  Is
> there any way I could convince you to report back to squeak-dev say at
> least quarterly on the current status of VM development work
> particularly with regards to 64bit and any other changes?

Well, you should not need to convince me, since that is supposed to be
one of my duties as the "team leader" for the elusive VM team ;) So consider
me convinced. I've floated some suggested "to-do" items to the team that
should give me some interesting things to report within the next few
weeks, so I'll plan to file a first quarterly update a few weeks from now.
Thanks for the prodding.

> I for one have been concerned with the extent to which differences
> between the platform VMs have been showing up recently.  I hope this is
> just a temporary issue.

Yes it is a temporary issue, although I fear that adding support for
various 64-bit platforms could cause significant extra work for the
platform maintainers, so we'll need to keep an eye on that if it gets
to be a problem.

Dave

El mar, 21-07-2009 a las 16:25 -0400, David T. Lewis escribió: Thanks to all for your answers. And you are right, I have installed the
ia32-libs on my Debian Lenny and I can use the 32bit built exupery vm to
run the pharo image with closures from my amd64 install. I'll test the
squeak image tonight. That for the moment solves my problems. Of course
the community will be grateful to read the updates on the vm area.

Thanks,
Miguel Cobá

Dave, i'd like to thank you for your efforts. With you, as a VM team
leader (even elusive one)
things getting better and better.
Before you stept forward, we really missed the one, who would
coordinate a different maintainers efforts to deliver the same,
up-to-date functionality and latest fixes on all major platforms.
So your contribution is much appreciated.

2009/7/21 David T. Lewis <[hidden email]>:


--
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.