Re: Status of Strongtalk C++ code: VM stability and progress on a graphical debugger

Hi,

I'll try and respond to those issues I have an answer for.

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 12:59 AM, Shaping <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>  What's more, it scales
> > much better.
>
> This is one of my concerns.


If you want to chase down performance data for Java threads vs. actors, you
might look at the actor library in Scala. See

http://lamp.epfl.ch/~phaller/actors.html

some of their papers explore this in some detail. The Erlang literature will
also give data.


> Agreed.  What is Strongtalk's concurrency model, if any?


Non-preemptive threading. You can implement some versions actors on top of
that as it stands, I think.


>
> To continue working with Strongtalk, as if it were a serious tool and
> not a cool toy, I need:  stability, a graphical debugger, external
> interfacing to DDLs, and then a sound concurrency model.


Stability is the hard part, where one needs a detailed understanding of the
VM code.  As I've said, getting a full debugger isn't that hard:

a. There already is a partial implementation of a debugger
b. If we were to get the system stable enough to be a basis for Newspeak,
we'd bind the Newspeak IDE to it, including a debugger.

One caveat for us would be the licensing. Any new code would have to be
licensed under similar terms to the Strongtalk base. GPL is the kiss of
death for us.

I'm not sure  what you mean by "DDL"? Data Definition Language? Or is it a
typo? In any case, you can call out to C and have C call back via the FFI
and do whatever.

I expect actors on top of the current system would satisfy your concurrency
needs.

>
>  When I arranged for Strongtalk's release at Sun I
> > had hoped the open source community would make it robust enough for real
> > use. So far, progress has been rather slow. I hope that will change.
>
> We need to understand why the progress has been slow.  Strongtalk
> looks like adavanced compiler technology to me.  Why aren't people
> working on it?  Is the C++ code difficult to understand?  Is it badly
> organized?


It is very well organized, but it is still difficult to understand, because
high performance VMs are difficult to understand.

>
>
-- 
Cheers, Gilad

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