Re: [Sablevm-user] Greetings!

[Brent F. <bfu...@de...>]

On Fri, Jul 14, 2000 at 11:15:08PM -0400, Etienne M. Gagnon wrote:
> Brent Fulgham wrote:
> > >  Mainly, what is missing is the
> > > native implementation of VM specific classes required by
> > > classpath/sablepath. ...
> > Understood.  I wonder if any of the comparable classes used in Japhar
> > or Kaffe could be used as a starting point...
> 
> Not really.  That is the catch.  These thigns are really VM dependent. 
> As SableVM's internal object layout is quite different from these vms, I
> must re-implement them.
> 
Well, I suppose that makes sense after all.  But of course the bright side
is that it provides an opportunity to do things *right* :-)

> > At any rate, I learned through my reading that certain functional
> > programming features (like closures) are hard to implement
> > efficiently on top of Java.  So, my question.
> 
> Yep.  The Java vm is pretty much tuned to execute Java code.  You would
> probably need to rethink part of the vm to get native support for
> closures.
> 
Well, and that's really the downside.  As a language base, the VM would
be fine I suppose even if it had some non-standard bytecodes defined.
However, the infrastructure required to implement closures might provide
some separate benefit for Java itself (perhaps through providing a more
efficient means of handling certain functions).  But this is not based
on anything more than my musings right now.

> greatest help areas would be in the sablevm/sablepath integration.  The
> native code in sablepath seems to be in great need of improvement.  But,
> if you are interested in vm specific coding instead, I will also need
> help (to be defined;-).
> 
Fine.  I won't be able to do much for the time being anyway.  I'm trying
to make my way through a bunch of reference material I've accumulated
recently and I want to get that done soon.  I'm actually looking forward
to reading the VM code you've produced as a learning experience.

As I said, VM hacking is not my forte (yet), but implementing some sablepath 
classes and native glue should be doable.  It should make for some nice small
bits that could be implemented piece by piece.  Let me know what you are
thinking regarding what sequence things should be done in, etc.

Oh, I have a Sourceforge login, by the way, "bfulgham", in case you
wanted to add me to the project at some point.

> I use the official vm specification (version 2), as reference for the
> implementation.  I have the book, but you can find it online at:
> http://java.sun.com/docs/books/vmspec/
> 
Great.  Sounds like a lot of fun!

-Brent