On 21 October 2013 00:48, Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda@gmail.com> wrote:

 

Hi Igor,

On Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 6:42 AM, Igor Stasenko <siguctua@gmail.com> wrote:

 

On 22 September 2013 20:29, Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda@gmail.com> wrote:

 

Hi Levente,

On Sat, Sep 21, 2013 at 11:39 AM, Levente Uzonyi <leves@elte.hu> wrote:

Great progress. I've got a few questions about Spur and the bootstrap:
- How will HashedCollections other than MethodDictionaries get rehashed? How #hash be calculated from #identityHash?

The bootstrap first builds an image in the new format and then finds all classes in it that implement rehash and then uses the simulator to send rehash to all objects to use their own rehash method to rehash them, instead of assuming their format.  In fact, the bootstrap does not rehash all objects that understand rehash since Symbol is one of them, and its Symbol table is rehashed anyway.

hash is computed from identityHash without change, but scaledIdentityHash is changed to avoid creating LargeIntegers (the larger identityHash needs less shift also):

ProtoObjectPROTOTYPEscaledIdentityHash

"For identityHash values returned by primitive 75, answer

such values times 2^8.  Otherwise, match the existing

identityHash implementation"

^self identityHash * 256 "bitShift: 8"

- What will happen to primitive 138 and 139? Will we still be able to iterate over the objects in the order of their creation time?

That's much more difficult.  I'll add allInstances and allObjects primitives which can answer the objects instantianeously without needing to enumerate.  One issue is that the scavenger could fire at any time during the enumeration and could tenure objects to old space so its in general not possible to reliably enumerate via firstInstance/nextInstance firstObject/nextObject.

indeed.

i think we could breathe more freely if VM wouldn't be obliged to expose heap enumeration/walking primitives.. I just wonder, if it is possible to provide alternatives for most cases:

 - finding all instances

 - finding all pointers to subject

so the heap walking primitives can R.I.P.

.. but there could be more, which we may need and which would require heap walking.
what you think?

I much prefer having allInstances and allObjects primitives.  I'll be implementing them.  In VisualWorks we also implemented allInstancesOfAny: to collect all instances of a set of classes, useful for the ClassBuilder, and also for odd uses like enumerating all fonts in one pass.

  

and what about graph traversal prim?

by having it (and possibly one extra prim, which answers all roots known by VM,

if we cannot get roots in some other way already),

one can easily implement all of the rest:

roots := VM primAllRoots.

allObjects := VM primGraphScan: roots ignoring: #().

allInstances := allObjects select: [:ea | myclasses includes: ea class].

and in constrast to heap walking, this graph traversal will not give false positives (objects
which not reachable anymore, but listed because GC didn't caught them yet).

Being able to enumerate in order of creation time is something the VM could maintain in old space, keeping objects in order there-in.  But I'd rather drop this property and allow the Spur GC to compact using best-fit and lazy become, which will change the order of objects.  How important is being able to enumerate in order of creation?  I think it's nice to have but hardly essential.  What do y'all think?

 

IMO, i would never make any assumptions, in which order objects are located on heap nor in which order
they get enumerated. "Heap" word says for itself here. (and anyone who thinks otherwise should be
shot on sight :)

Agreed, but once the VM was simple and so we could get away with it.  

 

- IIUC the memory is more segmented. Will there be new GC primitives for various levels of garbage collection? What about the GC parameters?

That remains to be seen.  I take requests.  I take design suggestions.  But I also like to keep things simple.

My current approach is to keep things as compatible as possible to ease adoption.  Once it is adopted we can start to evolve to provide appropriate and.or improved management facilities.

 

- Are #become: and #becomeForward: optimized for the case where both objects use the same amount of memory?

Yes.  This case simply swaps contents and adjusts the remembered table accordingly.  Tim also suggested optimizing the other case, copying into the smaller object and only allocating one extra clone, which I'll implement soon.

 

Levente

On Sat, 21 Sep 2013, btc@openinworld.com wrote:

commits@source.squeak.org wrote:

 Eliot Miranda uploaded a new version of VMMaker to project VM Maker:
http://source.squeak.org/VMMaker/VMMaker.oscog-eem.399.mcz

==================== Summary ====================

Name: VMMaker.oscog-eem.399
Author: eem
Time: 20 September 2013, 6:28:56.308 pm
UUID: 89f8fefe-b59d-42d7-9c11-7f848d0e5131
Ancestors: VMMaker.oscog-eem.398

A few isIntegerObject:'s => isImmediate:'s in primitives.

More protocol.

The Spur VM now draws its first window!!

A cheer goes up in the crowd of interested spectators.
Probably lots still to do, but its a nice concrete milestone.
Contributing is beyond me at this time, so I especially like to thank you for this important initiative.

cheers -ben

--
best,

Eliot

--
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko.

--
best,

Eliot

--
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko.