On Wed, 31 May 2000 22:59:33 +0200 Stephan Rudlof sr@evolgo.de wrote:
I think most people update their VMs, if there is a official (not alpha) version number change. Currently we are staying at VM2.7.
Is this true or may I be wrong here?
It's hard to say - who knows how many lurkers out are there and what they are doing.
Personally, I tend to lag behind in getting new VM's simply because it's another step, but in this case, Dan warned us that we could see significant degradation in performance if we took all the new image updates and were missing some optional plugins. On Friday he wrote:
---- In the same 2.8 folder on UIUC where I put the interim 2.8beta VM for the Mac, there is now a "real" one, by the name of
SqueakVM2.8beta.sea.bin
This VM... IS built from all the latest plugin sources IS "fat" (ie it will run on a 68K) DOES NOT have the new LargeInteger primitives (but it rocks with the plugin!) DOES have fast recovery from missing primitives (so it still runs fine without the plugin) DOES support 'Smalltalk listBuiltinModules' and related functions
Thanks to all the VM construction workers, and to John for compiling this VM. ----
So I got that one. The story on other platforms may vary.
Cheers, Bob
This VM... IS built from all the latest plugin sources IS "fat" (ie it will run on a 68K) DOES NOT have the new LargeInteger primitives (but it rocks with the plugin!) DOES have fast recovery from missing primitives (so it still runs fine without the plugin) DOES support 'Smalltalk listBuiltinModules' and related functions
The documentation in Smalltalk listBuiltinModules suggests that this function will list all plugins.
In fact, it lists only the "internal" plugins "built into" the VM, and NOT subsequently loaded "external plugins."
The documentation should reflect this fact, so that folks (like myself) won't chase their tails trying to figure out how to load a plugin that is already loaded.
On the other hand, the "loaded" or "loadable" status of an "external" plugin is a highly desirable piece of information. Presently, the only real solution is to write some special purpose procedure in the plugin to that end.
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