RE: VM images and working in the VM image

Aha! Concrete stuff to discuss. I am happy. :-)

(*) App servers obviously have to occupy some overhead in order to provide
their functionality to the loaded components. How much overhead they consume
in order to provide that functionality is, I think, a fair topic to discuss.
Whether that functionality is worth the overhead is a value judgement
everybody gets to make for themselves.

(*) No argument on the dynamic nature of the image vs. the static nature of
the Java app server (though, in theory, the app server doesn't need to go
down just to change code, either--all that is handled through ClassLoaders
in the JVM, which are far more dynamic than you might expect). This may be
more complicated than what we can approach in this email, but... When you
change the shape of objects in memory, though, how does the ST image handle
that? Do existing objects receive the change? And what happens if methods
are invoked in the middle of the reload?

(BTW, you and I, I think we've had this discussion on the usefulness of the
ST image before, over blogs--I'm not arguing against the idea, just trying
to understand it better.)

(*) You're referring to your Cincomm Smalltalk flavor, correct? VisualWorks?
Not Strongtalk?

(*) How do you persist those changes to the image so that if the machine
crashes, the image doesn't lose all those changes? Do you periodically have
to flush the image to disk? And is that transactional somehow?

(*) Hopefully you'll also allow me to assert that running a blog engine
isn't exactly the high-scale requirement environment that some of the Java
(and .NET) app servers are asked to handle. :-) What I'd *really* love,
though, in order to move this particular point out of the realm of the
abstract, is to know *exactly* what the runtime footprint of your "app
server image" takes up, so as to hopefully compare/contrast it against the
runtime footprint of a Java app server stack. (I'd much rather argue facts
than assertions, and numbers against "belief".)

Heck, for that matter, I'm not trying to "argue" at all. Just learn. :-)

Ted Neward
Java, .NET, XML Services
Consulting, Teaching, Speaking, Writing
http://www.tedneward.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:strongtalk-
> [email protected]] On Behalf Of James Robertson
> Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2007 7:19 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: RE: VM images and working in the VM image
> 
> 
> Oh?  My blog: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog
> 
> runs on an image, as do all the others hosted there:
> 
> http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs
> 
> Any arbitrary application server for Java you pick is going to chew
> resources as well; claiming that the image is some kind of resource
> hog is just silly.  Running a Smalltalk image w/o the GUI is fairly
> easy to do (at least using the flavor I use) - and having the
> compiler present allows me to add patches (including ones that change
> the shape of objects in memory) as the image runs - I don't have to
> play the "take it down, update, bring it up" game.
> 
> To build my runtime I start with a base image, and start with a
> command line like this:
> 
> visual baseImage.im -filein startupScript.st - nogui
> 
> Where startupScript.st has Smalltalk code that loads in the
> components I need to run, and configures the system for runtime.
> 
> >Case in point: ST's notion of the IDE-in-the-image is pretty lame when
> >looking to deploy an image within a "headless" environment. Is there
> another
> >approach when trying to build a server? Surely when running Seaside, for
> >example, I don't want or need the overhead of the IDE hanging around....
> It
> >might be useful in certain scenarios, but most of the time, it's just
> going
> >to be useless overhead....
> >
> >I recognize that it's probably impossible to summarize the ST philosophy
> >down into a single email of reasonable proportions, and of course it's up
> to
> >Richard to go read more about the ST philosophy if he wants to "get" ST
> in
> >any reasonable sense. But it's not too much to ask, I don't think, to
> answer
> >in single-sentence form the specific issues being raised--plus, that way,
> >it's in the archives for others to discover later when they come to ST
> with
> >their own questions.
> >
> >Ted Neward
> >Java, .NET, XML Services
> >Consulting, Teaching, Speaking, Writing
> >http://www.tedneward.com
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: [email protected] [mailto:strongtalk-
> > > [email protected]] On Behalf Of tim Rowledge
> > > Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2007 2:50 PM
> > > To: [email protected]
> > > Subject: Re: VM images and working in the VM image
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 12-May-07, at 2:24 PM, Richard wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Coming from a background of C++, Ruby and Java I'm used the idea
> that
> > > > you program in an IDE and then you output a Jar
> > > That imply isn't the way Smalltalk works Richard. It sounds as if you
> > > would gain a lot by reading up on how Smalltalk works and how it is
> > > very different to old ways of doing things.
> > >
> > > Try  Smalltalk Central (http://www.smalltalk-central.com/
> > > showDocument.ssp?section=Articles&name=Documentation), http://
> > > www.iam.unibe.ch/~ducasse/FreeBooks.html etc.
> > >
> > > Basically we just don't do dead code. As one wag put it "source code
> > > in files? How quaint."
> > >
> > >
> > > tim
> > > --
> > > tim Rowledge; [email protected]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> > > There can never be a computer language in which you cannot write a
> > > bad program.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > >
> > > No virus found in this incoming message.
> > > Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> > > Version: 7.5.467 / Virus Database: 269.6.8/800 - Release Date:
> 5/11/2007
> > > 7:34 PM
> > >
> >
> >No virus found in this outgoing message.
> >Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> >Version: 7.5.467 / Virus Database: 269.6.8/800 - Release Date: 5/11/2007
> >7:34 PM
> >
> >
> >
> >
> <Talk Small and Carry a Big Class Library>
> James Robertson, Product Manager, Cincom Smalltalk
> http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView
> 
> 
> > 
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.5.467 / Virus Database: 269.6.8/800 - Release Date: 5/11/2007
> 7:34 PM
> 

No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
Version: 7.5.467 / Virus Database: 269.6.8/800 - Release Date: 5/11/2007
7:34 PM
 


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