[self-interest] Getting someone to port Self

[Michael Latta]

The DLR (the layer on the CLR designed for dynamic languages) adds  
support for dynamic languages and packages up some of the concerns,  
which on the JVM you would need to roll yourself.  The underlying CLR  
has a few more hooks for dynamic languages than does the JVM.  In J2EE  
7 they have said they will be adding a new op-code to better support  
dynamic language dispatch, which may even the field in terms of the  
basic VM support.

In any case you may find a much better fit with the new javascript VMs  
that are coming out of webkit and FireFox.  They are very high  
performance, and do not have the strong typing basis that both the JVM  
and CLR assume.  Other than syntax javascript is very compatible with  
self in its concepts.

Michael



On Sep 21, 2008, at 3:15 AM, Russell Allen wrote:

> Hi Jeff,
>
> There have been attempts to get Self running on the JVM (which I am  
> more
> familiar with since it is open source and cross platform); as you
> indicated, it seems that you pay a speed price for being on a VM that
> doesn't quite fit but on the other hand should be potentially able  
> to take
> advantage of a well written VM and lots of premade libraries.   
> Certainly
> jython, jRuby and Groovy seem to show it could be done...
>
> Do you see any advantages of .Net over the JVM?
>
> Russell
>
>
> On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 05:56:00 +1000, Jeff Brown <jeff.brown at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Why not build a Self interpreter on the .Net Dynamic Language  
>> Runtime?
>> Sure, the performance won't be as good as native but you'll get more
>> portability in the long term.
>> Jeff.
>>
>>  _____
>>
>> From: self-interest at yahoogroups.com
>> [mailto:self-interest at yahoogroups.com]
>> On Behalf Of Russell Allen
>> Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 5:25 AM
>> To: Self Mailing List
>> Subject: [self-interest] Getting someone to port Self
>>
>>
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm interested in making a number of improvements/changes to Self,  
>> not
>> for any particular commercial motive but out of general interest in
>> Self and its ideas.
>>
>> A good starting point for this would be getting the Self VM working
>> properly on linux and Windows.
>>
>> Unfortunately, I'm not a C++ person, and the learning curve is a bit
>> too steep and my time too limited to do it myself.
>>
>> What I was wondering was whether anyone on this list knew any  
>> students
>> who would be interested in doing the porting work. I would be  
>> prepared
>> to put some money towards the effort of porting if it would help,
>> though obviously my budget is pretty limited. Everything done would
>> be released under the same open source licence as the rest of Self.
>>
>> I'm open to any alternative ideas on how to get there too!
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Russell
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
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