Self-interest July 2004

self-interest@lists.selflanguage.org

14 participants
11 discussions

Adding method slots dynamically
by oscar_lopez_p 16 Aug '05

16 Aug '05

Hello, How can I add dynamically a method slot to a self object? . I have: the method selector, the argument names and the body (source code) of a method, and I need (at runtime) to create a method from them and add it to an existing object. Thanks for the help, Oscar Lopez

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Performance?
by Michael Latta 19 Oct '04

19 Oct '04

The Squeak list has postings for bytecodes/sec and sends/sec. Are similar figures avaialble for self? Is there a benchmark that can be run to get similar figures? I would be interested in knowing the relative performance of the two systems. Squeak seems to be running > 1000 cycles / bytecode. This seems quite high compared to the techniques used in the Self compiler, even with GC and compiler overhead. Michael

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Zero, a programming system
by baltasarq 29 Jul '04

29 Jul '04

Hi, all !! I'd like to make public the Zero system, written by me, It is by now composed by a virtual machine, an assembler and a macro-assembler. The virtual machine is based on prototypes, and dynamic, such as Self. However, the syntax I've chosen is [a flavor of] the Java/C++ one. It can be downloadable for windows here: http://trevinca.ei.uvigo.es/~jgarcia/TO/zero/ You'll find the web pages translated into english, as well as the README embedded in the zip package, unfortunately the examples and the rest of the documentation are written in spanish. The audience is expected to be spanish-speaking. Anyway, I think that its use is very straightforward. The program is multiplatform (in fact, right now the VM only supports the console, which makes things so far easy in that aspect). Actually, I develop it in Linux, and I cross-compile it to windows. I don't include the executables for linux, as the static compiled versions are huge, and the dynamic-compiled ones won't work in computers with a libstdc++ different to mines. The objective is to create a platform in which I'll develop a programming language wich I defend will smooth the learning curve in learning the object oriented programming paradigm. I'd appreciate any feedback. :-) But please, don't be too harsh ! Remember that the system is still in a quite inmature state, too. Salud ! Baltasar

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Self in the news!
by Ian Woollard 27 Jul '04

27 Jul '04

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/27/esmertec_acquires_oovm/ Hotspot designer Bak was quoted as saying: /Bak worked on Sun's pioneering Self Project <http://research.sun.com/self/papers/papers.html> - which began life at Xerox and then continued at Stanford, and Beta, a successor to Simula. He has 18 years experience developing virtual machines. Any useful bit of advice stand out, we wondered?/ /"You have to make them simpler," he told us. "Which was not the case with Self; it was a fairly big system."/ Not exactly a glowing testimony- but then again he is working on embedded, small, systems, so I can kind of see his point; from that angle.

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VIRUS! [self-interest] Re:
by Alex Ausch 21 Jul '04

21 Jul '04

This email seems to be virus infected. Jecel <jecel(a)merlintec.com> wrote:fotogalary --------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/self-interest/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: self-interest-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. > ATTACHMENT part 2 application/octet-stream name=foto1.cpl --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign!

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None
by None 21 Jul '04

21 Jul '04

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Finding out clones and prototypes
by oscar_lopez_p 13 Jul '04

13 Jul '04

Hi, I'm writing a rule-based inference engine in SELF, and some implementation issues have popped out: Is there a fast way to get a reference to all the clones made from an object?. Something like executing `aClass allInstances' in Smalltalk. Also, is it possible to, given an arbitrary object, find out the prototype it was cloned from (or if it is itself a prototype) ?. Thanks a LOT, Oscar

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Re: [self-interest] Performance?
by Jakob Praher 05 Jul '04

05 Jul '04

hi Michael, Jecel, David, and everybody, I very much enjoy the threads here. from a vm design point of view, I, as a self interested person, would have some questions: * how would you design a self vm from scratch these days? * what are the things, learned? -> for instance the heap word structure, with the two bit tag fields, were they big problems when introducing 64 bit support? * self-in-self would be interesting (I know the jikes rmv design, which is a java vm in java, they use some kind of runtime image, which must be created with a java vm once and then gets dumped to a file. they use a simple image loader, which produces all the runtime data structures for the vm to launch it). -> what are design issues here I could imagine that a self vm could lay the ground for a vm that is capable of different language/runtime systems, like the paper that implemented java on top of the self vm. This would especially be valuable, given the soup of different languages/runtimes we have today (java,python,.net, ... ) Are you serious about relaunching a self project again? It could be rather interesting... have a nice weekend. -- Jakob Am Sam, den 03.07.2004 schrieb Michael Latta um 2:15: > As Jecel pointed out, we are not trying to find out how "good" self is. > The VM technology is clearly newer/better. > > It all started when I did some bad math in my head and thought that > Squeak was running 1000 cycles / bytecode. The actual > numbers are much more reasonable (8 / bytecode or so). Then I asked if > the same benchmarks could be run in Self to compare > them on my machine. > > Having just got back from JavaOne I have a related question. Is the > HotSpot VM faster than Self? I will probably try recoding it in java > just > for curiosity sake. It sure is hard to look at the success of Java and > hold out for the Smalltalk/Self language and environment. It is > however the things > that Java left out from these languages and environments that make them > so much more productive and enjoyable to work in. Even the best Java > IDEs > with some code replacement features, are no where close to the fluidity > of the "older" environments. The Java VMs only allow live replacement > if you are > not adding/removing methods or fields! Talk about user visible > discontinuity. What we need is a commercially usable VM that runs > Self/Smalltalk and can > interoperate with Java (through SOAP?). > > Michael > > > > On Jul 2, 2004, at 3:01 PM, David Ungar wrote: > > > What benchmarks are you running? > > I believe that bytecodes/sec can be a meaningless figure. > > Remember that in Smalltalk bitblt is one bytecode, and local variable > > access is one bytecode. > > > > When we did our benchmarking work, we took a (then) medium-sized > > program, Richards, > > and wrote it in optimized C++, and in several different styles in Self, > > varying in amount > > of object-orientedness. > > > > Remember, that in a Self-style VM, sends to self of messages whose > > method bodies are small are free. > > Also, custom control structures you build run just as fast as ifTrue: > > while:, etc. > > Last time I looked, this was not true in Smalltalk VMs. So, if your > > benchmark uses a control structure > > that the ST compiler happens to replace with branch bytecodes, you do > > OK. > > But if not, you lose. I don't know if it is still true, but in ST-80, > > folks used to distort their code > > to use the "good" control structures. > > > > - David > > > > > > > > > > On Jul 2, 2004, at 10:28 AM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr wrote: > > > >> On Thursday 01 July 2004 23:11, Michael Latta wrote: > >>> It looks like the compiler on the Mac is not as good as that for the > >>> Sparc. On my 1Ghz powerbook I got the following: > >>> > >>> 47,058,823 bytecodes/sec and 17,247,597 sends/sec > >>> > >>> which is a lot less than the 277Mhz sparc for bytecodes, but > >>> competitive on sends. Still not what you want when comparing to > >>> hardware with 1/4 the clock rate. > >> > >> Is this a G4? I'll see what numbers I get on 1GHz G4 eMac the next > >> time > >> I get to use that machine. I suppose you are using the latest version > >> - > >> Self on the Mac didn't have the SIC (simple inlining compiler) before > >> 4.2 and didn't even have PICs (polymorphic inline caches) before > >> 4.1.6. > >> > >> <http://research.sun.com/self/release_4.2/Self-4.2.1/Self-4.2.1- > >> Release-Notes.pdf> > >> > >> It seems that the compilers have been improved for the Sparc. Here are > >> more numbers on that same machine: > >> > >> Self 4.0 => 60,150,375 bytecodes/sec; 5,845,070 sends/sec > >> Self 4.1 => 78,527,607 bytecodes/sec; 15,404,782 sends/sec > >> > >> You might also want to run the benchmarks several times. Here are the > >> first ten runs in Self 4.1.1 on the Ultra: > >> > >> 75,029,308 bytecodes/sec; 16,746,759 sends/sec > >> 74,116,965 bytecodes/sec; 16,915,608 sends/sec > >> 69,678,824 bytecodes/sec; 16,492,340 sends/sec > >> 72,480,181 bytecodes/sec; 16,946,674 sends/sec > >> 97,116,843 bytecodes/sec; 16,962,250 sends/sec > >> 100,078,186 bytecodes/sec; 16,993,488 sends/sec > >> 101,910,858 bytecodes/sec; 16,962,250 sends/sec > >> 101,185,770 bytecodes/sec; 16,977,855 sends/sec > >> 101,105,845 bytecodes/sec; 17,024,842 sends/sec > >> 85,106,382 bytecodes/sec; 17,087,897 sends/sec > >> > >> Please note that these are bad benchmarks for Squeak, and even worse > >> for > >> Self (the moral equivalent of BogoMIPS in Linux). For a serious > >> comparison we should be using DeltaBlue, Richards and so on. > >> > >>> Now I need to run the same thing on Squeak to compare on the same > >>> hardware. Could you point me at the squeak expression? > >> > >> 0 tinyBenchmarks > >> > >> -- Jecel > >> > >> > >> > >> Yahoo! Groups Links > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > self-interest-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com > > > ___________________________________________________________ Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail - Jetzt mit 100MB Speicher kostenlos - Hier anmelden: http://mail.yahoo.de

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Re: Performance?
by Mario Wolczko 03 Jul '04

03 Jul '04

> Is the HotSpot VM faster than Self? I sure hope so. There has been at least 10x, and maybe as much as 50x, applied man-years to HotSpot as to Self, and they started with the Self VM. I personally had as many as a dozen guys standing on my shoulders at one time ;-) Off the top of my head, these are the salient differences: - HotSpot uses native threads, and so can take advantage of multiple CPUs. - HotSpot has a sophisticated interpreter in place of Self's NIC. - The HotSpot client compiler is roughly comparable in sophistication to the Self SIC, except that it does not inline quite as aggresively, nor have so many optimization levels. - The HotSpot server compiler is a big, complicated, SSA-based compiler that has a level of sophistication approaching that of a good optimizing C/C++/Fortran compiler. - HotSpot has several garbage collectors, most of which are either concurrent (run alongside the mutator) and/or parallel (use multiple CPUs). That said, the Self VM - better supports programming changes (HotSpot allows method redefinition, but not structural class changes) - has an expandable, segmented heap, with the heap expansion policy in Self (I am crowing about this because I wrote it, and just helped Dave debug and improve it!) - has a much faster bytecode verifier ;-) I'm sure there are some differences I've forgotten. -Mario

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Re: [self-interest] simplicity
by Chandrasekhar Ramakrishnan 02 Jul '04

02 Jul '04

Ian Woollard schrieb: > For example in C++ you can do things like: > > { > FileHandle f = open("/adirectory/aFile", open); > > f << "I went to the zoo"; > } > > And the file may be automagically closed as f goes out of scope. Yes, but you could also do this: class ZooWriter { FileHandle mFH; public: void write_zoo() { mFH = open("/adir/afile", open); mFH << "I went to the zoo"; } void after_writing_zoo_write_home() { mFH << ". Then I went home"; } void essay() { write_zoo(); after_writing_zoo_write_home(); } } And then you'll have a problem. (Aside -- how would you implement the open function described in your example? Instead of creating an open function, I would have given FileHandle a two argument constructor and written FileHandle f("path", open), but there's always more I can learn about C++.) > But this is unreliable in Java/Self/Smalltalk- you don't know when the > GC will get around to release it. I consider this to be a bug in these > languages. Yes, but if your runtime uses a two-space GC implementation and collects recently allocated objects more frequently, the file handle will be closed reasonably soon, and you get the added bonus that the example I provided won't cause any problems. - sekhar -- C. Ramakrishnan cramakrishnan(a)acm.org

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Self-interest July 2004