this idea came to me a few minutes ago: how hard would it be, and what kind of performance penalty would you have to pay to make the bytecode set a property of a method such that the vm would execute different methods against different bytecode sets? specifically, i'm thinking it would be great to have the vm be able to run both the smalltalk bytecode set and the java bytecode set. sure, optimally you would have one universal vm bytecode set, but i think i nice intermediate step would be to be able to use both side-by-side.
comment? ideas?
david
At 10:59 AM 2/26/99 -0500, you wrote:
I have been reading the "Optimizing Squeak" thread with great interest, though not always with great understanding :-) Playing with different VM architectures and alternative bytecodes sounds like enormous fun and a really powerful student project.
How does one actually move to a new bytecode set? What is the path by which you say "Okay, recompile all the code in the system using my new compiler in order to create a new image for my new VM"? The Digitalk people had to do this at least once, didn't they? Or do new bytecode sets typically retain some backward compatibility while bootstrapping?
Thanks! Mark
Mark Guzdial : Georgia Tech : College of Computing : Atlanta, GA 30332-0280 (404) 894-5618 : Fax (404) 894-0673 : guzdial@cc.gatech.edu http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Faculty/Mark.Guzdial.html
-- j. david farber oo architect+mentor numenor labs incorporated in sunny boulder colorado dfarber@numenor.com www.numenor.com