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IBM Open Sources Multi-core Smalltalk VM

111 points by tialys 16y ago

rbanffy 16y ago
Let me be the first to say it: Wow!
- tialys 16y ago
  That was my reaction as well. I've been learning Smalltalk recently, and this seems like a really great addition to Squeak!
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    I learned a bit of Smalltalk in the mid-80's. It took me eight years to decide to learn C++ after that. It never felt very object oriented (or oriented).
protomyth 16y ago
And Squeak just went to a massive effort to get everything MIT licensed. Wonder if they will incorporate this given its license.
- rasur 16y ago
  addendum: My mistake, there appear to be some Pharo oriented files in the release already. Happy days.
whyenot 16y ago
Today, the RoarVM supports the parallel execution of Smalltalk programs on x86 compatible multicore systems and Tilera TILE64-based manycore systems. It is tested with standard Squeak 4.1 closure-enabled images, and with a stripped down version of a MVC-based Squeak 3.9 image. Combined with the recent efforts to tidy up and pare down Squeak's image, this is really exciting!
- rbanffy 16y ago
  Now I really want a Tilera workstation.
rasur 16y ago
It will be interesting to see if Pharo merges in this work, but.. regardless, this is an excellent development and I look forwards to playing with it.
superjared 16y ago
Is anyone here using Smalltalk for a production application? What are your thoughts on this VM?
- cwp 16y ago
  It's still at the research stage. It won't be production-ready for a while.
raphar 16y ago
Anyone knows if there are Tilera powered systems in production environment? (And what can you run on them?) I happen to have a manycore fetiche :D Edit: http://www.tilera.com/solutions/cloud_computing http://www.tilera.com/solutions/cloud_computing I want one of these. Anyone has one of these SQ2?
cies 16y ago
i hope for a ruby front-end will emerge for it. like what happened with maglev: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/MagLev_%28Ruby_interpreter%29 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/MagLev_%28Rub... a language cannot have enough active implementations. yet only needs one spec.
sedachv 16y ago
I got all excited, and then: "Hosting an Object Heap on Manycore Hardware: An Exploration" and "Garbage collector is as simple as possible it is neither concurrent nor parallel performance can be problematic" Well, they've solved the allocation part... but that's kind of not really useful without a concurrent+parallel collector.

111 points by tialys 16y ago

rbanffy 16y ago

Let me be the first to say it: Wow!

tialys 16y ago
That was my reaction as well. I've been learning Smalltalk recently, and this seems like a really great addition to Squeak!
- rbanffy 16y ago
  I learned a bit of Smalltalk in the mid-80's. It took me eight years to decide to learn C++ after that. It never felt very object oriented (or oriented).

protomyth 16y ago

And Squeak just went to a massive effort to get everything MIT licensed. Wonder if they will incorporate this given its license.

rasur 16y ago
addendum: My mistake, there appear to be some Pharo oriented files in the release already. Happy days.

whyenot 16y ago

Today, the RoarVM supports the parallel execution of Smalltalk programs on x86 compatible multicore systems and Tilera TILE64-based manycore systems. It is tested with standard Squeak 4.1 closure-enabled images, and with a stripped down version of a MVC-based Squeak 3.9 image. Combined with the recent efforts to tidy up and pare down Squeak's image, this is really exciting!

rbanffy 16y ago
Now I really want a Tilera workstation.

rasur 16y ago

It will be interesting to see if Pharo merges in this work, but.. regardless, this is an excellent development and I look forwards to playing with it.

superjared 16y ago

Is anyone here using Smalltalk for a production application? What are your thoughts on this VM?

cwp 16y ago
It's still at the research stage. It won't be production-ready for a while.

raphar 16y ago

Anyone knows if there are Tilera powered systems in production environment? (And what can you run on them?) I happen to have a manycore fetiche :D Edit: http://www.tilera.com/solutions/cloud_computing http://www.tilera.com/solutions/cloud_computing I want one of these. Anyone has one of these SQ2?

cies 16y ago

i hope for a ruby front-end will emerge for it. like what happened with maglev: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/MagLev_%28Ruby_interpreter%29 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/MagLev_%28Rub... a language cannot have enough active implementations. yet only needs one spec.

sedachv 16y ago

I got all excited, and then: "Hosting an Object Heap on Manycore Hardware: An Exploration" and "Garbage collector is as simple as possible it is neither concurrent nor parallel performance can be problematic" Well, they've solved the allocation part... but that's kind of not really useful without a concurrent+parallel collector.