[Glass] [squeak-dev] Falsehoods programmers believe about Smalltalk

[Eliot Miranda]

On Mon, Jan 21, 2019 at 1:13 PM Hernán Morales Durand <
hernan.morales at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Done.
>
> I have some possible myths, but I'd like to confirm or reject:
>
> - All Smalltalk bytecode sets are stack-based VM. (?)
>

While there might be some implementations that use a register based
bytecode set I've never heard of one.  I do know of a few implementations
that don't use bytecode at all.


> - Bytecodes are always fixed-size. (?)
>

False.


> - Most of the time spent by a VM is in the instruction interpreter.
> (actually it's in the GC right?)
>

Neither.  In a JIT VM most time is spent executing Smalltalk code.  GC
overheads vary depending on workload, typically in the range 1% to 50%
(typically for specially constructed benchmarks written to stress the GC).


> - You cannot serialize objects containing blocks. (IIRC one can use
> MessageSends)
>

False.


> - Image cannot be bootstrapped. (This is possible in ST/X and now in Pharo
> I think).
>

False.


> - All Smalltalks includes UI classes. (GemStone doesn't have AFAIK).
>

False.


> - All implementations uses direct pointers, (GST?)
>

False.  VisualWorks uses indirection pointers.  Xerox Smalltalk-80
implementations used indirection.  But many modern implementations use
direct pointers.


> - All implementations uses green threads. (VAST? MT?)
>

False.  SmalltalkMT.   But still mostly true.  VAST & VW have green threads
and a threaded FFI.


> I'm sure people in this list will have a lot more myths heard from
> Conferences, Forums, Videos, Talks, etc. Like the guy who said Smalltalk
> was dead. So if you did something which could be ignored publicly, please
> don't hesitate to reply or ping me to get added as collaborator.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Hernán
>
>
>
> El dom., 20 ene. 2019 a las 22:41, Eliot Miranda (<eliot.miranda at gmail.com>)
> escribió:
>
>> Hi Hernán,
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 20, 2019 at 2:31 PM Hernán Morales Durand <
>> hernan.morales at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi there,
>>>
>>> I just created a GitHub repo to collect myths around Smalltalk-based
>>> technologies: Pharo, Squeak, VW, VAST, Smalltalk/X, GNU/ST, etc. in the
>>> spirit of the Falsehoods lists [1-4].
>>>
>>> This is just a draft now but please feel free to add falsehoods based on
>>> your own experiences. Examples are greatly appreciated.
>>>
>>
>> You want pull requests?  If not, would you give me write permission?  I'd
>> love to add to the "Smalltalk is obsolete" section...
>>
>>
>>>
>>> https://github.com/hernanmd/falsehoods_smalltalk
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Hernán
>>>
>>> [1]
>>> https://infiniteundo.com/post/25326999628/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-time
>>> [2]
>>> https://chiselapp.com/user/ttmrichter/repository/gng/doc/trunk/output/falsehoods.html
>>> [3]
>>> https://github.com/googlei18n/libphonenumber/blob/master/FALSEHOODS.md
>>> [4]
>>> https://meta-package-manager.readthedocs.io/en/develop/falsehoods.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> _,,,^..^,,,_
>> best, Eliot
>>
>

-- 
_,,,^..^,,,_
best, Eliot
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