[self-interest] Re: Self on Linux

[Gordon Cichon]

Jecel Assumpcao Jr wrote:
> 
> This looks good. Here is a file that might help you:

Thank you for your suggestion. I am going to try it out when
time comes. Currently, I have to stick to very small examples
until I get the code generation under control.

There are still unresolved questions about how the GC, recompiler, 
debugger traverses the stack. The stack frame is quite different 
on i386: creating a new stack frame is not an atomic action on i386. 
I am not able to predict what happens, if somebody tries 
to traverse a stack frame while it is in creation. Additionally, 
the code on i386 is not 32 bit aligned. There is no delay slot.

Well, I am still working in single step mode.

> Speaking of snapshots and things, did you worry about the infamous
> Endian issue? Self ran originally on 680X0 machines, then the Sparc.
> Both of these are "big endian" processors, while the X86 is a "little
> endian" one. This will cause problems when reading integers/pointers
> from a file, talking with the network and so on. In Squeak, they were
> able to restrict their problems to the image (snapshot) code and the
> graphics primitives.

As soon as NIC runs, I am going to look if it is possible to read
a snapshot. The big/little-endian issues have to be addressed, of
course. I hope, the Self snapshot does not contain foreign data.

-Gordon

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