September 2009 - Pharo-dev - lists.pharo.org

Re: [Pharo-project] Status of Alien FFI

by Stefan Marr

On 19 Sep 2009, at 10:53, StÃ©phane Ducasse wrote: > ok I saw smalltalk squeak > but then how do you interpret the graph? Well, the graphs are... creative... At least not intuitive. Change one of the languages to C, then you will get a feeling for what they try to express. If the first language, you base for comparison, is faster it uses only a fraction of the time the other language needs. The bar will be below the one-line. If its slower, the ratio is higher, it uses x-time the time the other language uses. > > On Sep 19, 2009, at 10:41 AM, Stefan Marr wrote: > >> >> On 19 Sep 2009, at 08:46, Igor Stasenko wrote: >> >>> Lua is SLOW :) >> >>> But still - you can go and see the speed comparison of different >>> numerical algorythms implemented in different languages. >>> Squeak leaves Lua far behind.. >> That sounds like FUD. >> But, maybe I misunderstand you here. >> >> However, Lua 5.x is FAST, especially for an interpreted language. Its >> register-based implementation seems to be much better for >> interpretation in terms of speed than the stack-based bytecode in >> Squeak. >> >> See: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=lua&lang2… >> >> And: Virtual Machine Showdown: Stack Versus Registers >> Yunhe Shi and Kevin Casey and M. Anton Ertl and David Gregg >> ACM Trans. Archit. Code Optim.4(4):1--36(2008) >> >> >> Best regards >> Stefan >> >>> Especially, i think, if you use language for scripting, so scripts >>> will tend to contain more logic than heavy numeric crunching >>> (because >>> for numerical crunching hardcore devs using C & GPU) - smalltalk >>> will >>> win even more. >>> >>>> Stef >>>> >>>> On Sep 19, 2009, at 5:28 AM, Igor Stasenko wrote: >>>> >>>>> 2009/9/18 StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr>: >>>>>> yes this is one of my dream but .... >>>>>> I'm not good enough to make it come true. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Lua is specifically designed from the very starting to live well >>>>> as >>>>> embedded system, written in C. No wonder that its having very >>>>> good C >>>>> interoperability. >>>>> And that's why, at the time i found the smalltalk, first thing i >>>>> thought, that >>>>> creating an interoperability layer between C and smalltalk will >>>>> unleash its potential >>>>> for use in scripting. >>>>> Unfortunately, almost every implementation i found & read about >>>>> smalltalk vere designed as a >>>>> self-sustained (or self-sufficient) sandboxed environment with a >>>>> little care about host interoperability in mind. >>>>> Even existence of FFI in Squeak doesn't changes that, because >>>>> Squeak >>>>> VM architecture >>>>> as well as language-side design prevents you from controlling >>>>> interpreter from outside. >>>>> A less painful way for achieving a kind of embedding, as Andreas >>>>> mentioned, that you can write the >>>>> plugin which using callback machinery and create an image which >>>>> simpli >>>>> 'listening' for calls from outside >>>>> then handle them and put response back. >>>>> But i can't tell, how efficient it could be comparing to Lua >>>>> scripting >>>>> interface. >>>>> >>>>> For instance, if i would want to enable the dynamic primitive >>>>> publishing (which host application may want to >>>>> use), then this would require VM changes. >>>>> That's why i proposed , some time ago, to modify the VM internal >>>>> infrastructure to have a kind of namespace, >>>>> which is dynamically built-up using associations of symbols (C >>>>> strings) with some pointer/values. >>>>> Then you can publish primitives at any time you wanting to, >>>>> replace >>>>> them at run time and do many other >>>>> kind of tricks, which is possible, when function pointer is not >>>>> bound >>>>> at compile time, but discovered by VM >>>>> at run time. At some point we could even use a JIT to generate the >>>>> primitives and then let VM to pick them up at run time. >>>>> This means, that at some point you could JIT everything you need, >>>>> and >>>>> replace the C-compiled VM stuff after booting the >>>>> image, and from now on, VM is not something which is made from >>>>> stone >>>>> like all C-compiled binaries. So different >>>>> images could carry own system inside which, once its booted up, no >>>>> longer needs the statically compiled crap. >>>>> This also means, that by having a good JIT and VM tuned for this, >>>>> we >>>>> don't really need writing any C code anymore, because >>>>> main reason why we doing this is speed and easy interoperability >>>>> with >>>>> host environment. :) >>>>> >>>>>> Stef >>>>>> >>>>>> On Sep 18, 2009, at 6:40 PM, Lawson English wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Johan Brichau wrote: >>>>>>>> On 16 Sep 2009, at 20:37, Ken Treis wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> * I'm creating a partial Alien library for GemStone so that I >>>>>>>>> can >>>>>>>>> use the CairoGraphics package in both Pharo and GLASS. But on >>>>>>>>> x86-64, there there's a size difference between a pointer/long >>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>> an integer. It'd be nice to have some more explicit APIs on >>>>>>>>> Alien, >>>>>>>>> so I could say "Alien newCInteger" or "Alien newCLong" and >>>>>>>>> have >>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>> platform return me the proper size Alien. Even without the >>>>>>>>> platform >>>>>>>>> size differences, it seems awkward to use "Alien newC: 4" >>>>>>>>> everywhere >>>>>>>>> I want an integer, "Alien newC: 8" where I want a double, etc. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Exactly. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> It becomes worse once you start having structs and nested >>>>>>>> structs >>>>>>>> or >>>>>>>> structs with pointers to structs ;-) >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I'm using Alien as the FFI to port JavaConnect from Visualworks >>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>> Pharo/Squeak. As you say, it is a pain to work at such a low- >>>>>>>> level >>>>>>>> compared to the DLLCC in VW. I am planning to do some work on >>>>>>>> creating >>>>>>>> a higher-level interface for it such that we can operate it as >>>>>>>> you >>>>>>>> mention, including the correct bytesizes for all platforms. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> At the moment, I'm mostly focusing on getting the port to work >>>>>>>> right >>>>>>>> before I start creating an interface on top of the current >>>>>>>> Alien >>>>>>>> interface. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Something to keep in mind is the need for a straightforward way >>>>>>> of >>>>>>> going >>>>>>> the other way: John Mcintosh's port of the Squeak VM to iPhone >>>>>>> implies >>>>>>> that the same thing could be done in other Lua-ish situations, >>>>>>> allowing >>>>>>> people to use smalltalk syntax for game scripting. With the >>>>>>> right >>>>>>> libraries for an IDE, I would think squeak could be very >>>>>>> attractive to >>>>>>> at least some people in place of/in addition to using Lua. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Lawson >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>>>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>>>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo- >>>>>>> project >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo- >>>>>> project >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Best regards, >>>>> Igor Stasenko AKA sig. >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo- >>>>> project >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Best regards, >>> Igor Stasenko AKA sig. >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Pharo-project mailing list >>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >> >> -- >> Stefan Marr >> Software Languages Lab >> Former Programming Technology Lab >> Vrije Universiteit Brussel >> Pleinlaan 2 / B-1050 Brussels / Belgium >> http://prog.vub.ac.be/~smarr >> Phone: +32 2 629 3956 >> Fax: +32 2 629 3525 >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Pharo-project mailing list >> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project > > > _______________________________________________ > Pharo-project mailing list > Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project -- Stefan Marr Software Languages Lab Former Programming Technology Lab Vrije Universiteit Brussel Pleinlaan 2 / B-1050 Brussels / Belgium http://prog.vub.ac.be/~smarr Phone: +32 2 629 3956 Fax: +32 2 629 3525

Sept. 19, 2009

Re: [Pharo-project] Status of Alien FFI

by Stefan Marr

Well, the Language Shootout has some inherent problems. But still, it gives a rough estimate over some interesting metrics, especially execution time. The main problem is to have efficient and well optimized implementations of the benchmarks for each language. And as far as I know, the Lua community and some of their best people spend good time to optimize the benchmark implementations to avoid unnecessary function invocations and so on, with deep knowledge of the Lua implementation. So, the Lua code could be definitely nicer. A literal translation of the Smalltalk code to Lua is considerably slower than the highly optimized version, but as far as I recall an experiment of my own, still faster than the Squeak I used. But well, fell free to step in for the Smalltalk community and optimize the benchmark implementations for speed and not for beauty... On 19 Sep 2009, at 10:50, StÃ©phane Ducasse wrote: > Hi stefan > > do you what they are really comparing? > because Smalltalk looks mysterious to me. > > Stef > > On Sep 19, 2009, at 10:41 AM, Stefan Marr wrote: > >> >> On 19 Sep 2009, at 08:46, Igor Stasenko wrote: >> >>> Lua is SLOW :) >> >>> But still - you can go and see the speed comparison of different >>> numerical algorythms implemented in different languages. >>> Squeak leaves Lua far behind.. >> That sounds like FUD. >> But, maybe I misunderstand you here. >> >> However, Lua 5.x is FAST, especially for an interpreted language. Its >> register-based implementation seems to be much better for >> interpretation in terms of speed than the stack-based bytecode in >> Squeak. >> >> See: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=lua&lang2… >> >> And: Virtual Machine Showdown: Stack Versus Registers >> Yunhe Shi and Kevin Casey and M. Anton Ertl and David Gregg >> ACM Trans. Archit. Code Optim.4(4):1--36(2008) >> >> >> Best regards >> Stefan >> >>> Especially, i think, if you use language for scripting, so scripts >>> will tend to contain more logic than heavy numeric crunching >>> (because >>> for numerical crunching hardcore devs using C & GPU) - smalltalk >>> will >>> win even more. >>> >>>> Stef >>>> >>>> On Sep 19, 2009, at 5:28 AM, Igor Stasenko wrote: >>>> >>>>> 2009/9/18 StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr>: >>>>>> yes this is one of my dream but .... >>>>>> I'm not good enough to make it come true. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Lua is specifically designed from the very starting to live well >>>>> as >>>>> embedded system, written in C. No wonder that its having very >>>>> good C >>>>> interoperability. >>>>> And that's why, at the time i found the smalltalk, first thing i >>>>> thought, that >>>>> creating an interoperability layer between C and smalltalk will >>>>> unleash its potential >>>>> for use in scripting. >>>>> Unfortunately, almost every implementation i found & read about >>>>> smalltalk vere designed as a >>>>> self-sustained (or self-sufficient) sandboxed environment with a >>>>> little care about host interoperability in mind. >>>>> Even existence of FFI in Squeak doesn't changes that, because >>>>> Squeak >>>>> VM architecture >>>>> as well as language-side design prevents you from controlling >>>>> interpreter from outside. >>>>> A less painful way for achieving a kind of embedding, as Andreas >>>>> mentioned, that you can write the >>>>> plugin which using callback machinery and create an image which >>>>> simpli >>>>> 'listening' for calls from outside >>>>> then handle them and put response back. >>>>> But i can't tell, how efficient it could be comparing to Lua >>>>> scripting >>>>> interface. >>>>> >>>>> For instance, if i would want to enable the dynamic primitive >>>>> publishing (which host application may want to >>>>> use), then this would require VM changes. >>>>> That's why i proposed , some time ago, to modify the VM internal >>>>> infrastructure to have a kind of namespace, >>>>> which is dynamically built-up using associations of symbols (C >>>>> strings) with some pointer/values. >>>>> Then you can publish primitives at any time you wanting to, >>>>> replace >>>>> them at run time and do many other >>>>> kind of tricks, which is possible, when function pointer is not >>>>> bound >>>>> at compile time, but discovered by VM >>>>> at run time. At some point we could even use a JIT to generate the >>>>> primitives and then let VM to pick them up at run time. >>>>> This means, that at some point you could JIT everything you need, >>>>> and >>>>> replace the C-compiled VM stuff after booting the >>>>> image, and from now on, VM is not something which is made from >>>>> stone >>>>> like all C-compiled binaries. So different >>>>> images could carry own system inside which, once its booted up, no >>>>> longer needs the statically compiled crap. >>>>> This also means, that by having a good JIT and VM tuned for this, >>>>> we >>>>> don't really need writing any C code anymore, because >>>>> main reason why we doing this is speed and easy interoperability >>>>> with >>>>> host environment. :) >>>>> >>>>>> Stef >>>>>> >>>>>> On Sep 18, 2009, at 6:40 PM, Lawson English wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Johan Brichau wrote: >>>>>>>> On 16 Sep 2009, at 20:37, Ken Treis wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> * I'm creating a partial Alien library for GemStone so that I >>>>>>>>> can >>>>>>>>> use the CairoGraphics package in both Pharo and GLASS. But on >>>>>>>>> x86-64, there there's a size difference between a pointer/long >>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>> an integer. It'd be nice to have some more explicit APIs on >>>>>>>>> Alien, >>>>>>>>> so I could say "Alien newCInteger" or "Alien newCLong" and >>>>>>>>> have >>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>> platform return me the proper size Alien. Even without the >>>>>>>>> platform >>>>>>>>> size differences, it seems awkward to use "Alien newC: 4" >>>>>>>>> everywhere >>>>>>>>> I want an integer, "Alien newC: 8" where I want a double, etc. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Exactly. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> It becomes worse once you start having structs and nested >>>>>>>> structs >>>>>>>> or >>>>>>>> structs with pointers to structs ;-) >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I'm using Alien as the FFI to port JavaConnect from Visualworks >>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>> Pharo/Squeak. As you say, it is a pain to work at such a low- >>>>>>>> level >>>>>>>> compared to the DLLCC in VW. I am planning to do some work on >>>>>>>> creating >>>>>>>> a higher-level interface for it such that we can operate it as >>>>>>>> you >>>>>>>> mention, including the correct bytesizes for all platforms. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> At the moment, I'm mostly focusing on getting the port to work >>>>>>>> right >>>>>>>> before I start creating an interface on top of the current >>>>>>>> Alien >>>>>>>> interface. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Something to keep in mind is the need for a straightforward way >>>>>>> of >>>>>>> going >>>>>>> the other way: John Mcintosh's port of the Squeak VM to iPhone >>>>>>> implies >>>>>>> that the same thing could be done in other Lua-ish situations, >>>>>>> allowing >>>>>>> people to use smalltalk syntax for game scripting. With the >>>>>>> right >>>>>>> libraries for an IDE, I would think squeak could be very >>>>>>> attractive to >>>>>>> at least some people in place of/in addition to using Lua. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Lawson >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>>>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>>>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo- >>>>>>> project >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo- >>>>>> project >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Best regards, >>>>> Igor Stasenko AKA sig. >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo- >>>>> project >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Best regards, >>> Igor Stasenko AKA sig. >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Pharo-project mailing list >>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >> >> -- >> Stefan Marr >> Software Languages Lab >> Former Programming Technology Lab >> Vrije Universiteit Brussel >> Pleinlaan 2 / B-1050 Brussels / Belgium >> http://prog.vub.ac.be/~smarr >> Phone: +32 2 629 3956 >> Fax: +32 2 629 3525 >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Pharo-project mailing list >> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project > > > _______________________________________________ > Pharo-project mailing list > Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project -- Stefan Marr Software Languages Lab Former Programming Technology Lab Vrije Universiteit Brussel Pleinlaan 2 / B-1050 Brussels / Belgium http://prog.vub.ac.be/~smarr Phone: +32 2 629 3956 Fax: +32 2 629 3525

Sept. 19, 2009

Re: [Pharo-project] Status of Alien FFI

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

ok I saw smalltalk squeak but then how do you interpret the graph? On Sep 19, 2009, at 10:41 AM, Stefan Marr wrote: > > On 19 Sep 2009, at 08:46, Igor Stasenko wrote: > >> Lua is SLOW :) > >> But still - you can go and see the speed comparison of different >> numerical algorythms implemented in different languages. >> Squeak leaves Lua far behind.. > That sounds like FUD. > But, maybe I misunderstand you here. > > However, Lua 5.x is FAST, especially for an interpreted language. Its > register-based implementation seems to be much better for > interpretation in terms of speed than the stack-based bytecode in > Squeak. > > See: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=lua&lang2… > > And: Virtual Machine Showdown: Stack Versus Registers > Yunhe Shi and Kevin Casey and M. Anton Ertl and David Gregg > ACM Trans. Archit. Code Optim.4(4):1--36(2008) > > > Best regards > Stefan > >> Especially, i think, if you use language for scripting, so scripts >> will tend to contain more logic than heavy numeric crunching (because >> for numerical crunching hardcore devs using C & GPU) - smalltalk will >> win even more. >> >>> Stef >>> >>> On Sep 19, 2009, at 5:28 AM, Igor Stasenko wrote: >>> >>>> 2009/9/18 StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr>: >>>>> yes this is one of my dream but .... >>>>> I'm not good enough to make it come true. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Lua is specifically designed from the very starting to live well as >>>> embedded system, written in C. No wonder that its having very >>>> good C >>>> interoperability. >>>> And that's why, at the time i found the smalltalk, first thing i >>>> thought, that >>>> creating an interoperability layer between C and smalltalk will >>>> unleash its potential >>>> for use in scripting. >>>> Unfortunately, almost every implementation i found & read about >>>> smalltalk vere designed as a >>>> self-sustained (or self-sufficient) sandboxed environment with a >>>> little care about host interoperability in mind. >>>> Even existence of FFI in Squeak doesn't changes that, because >>>> Squeak >>>> VM architecture >>>> as well as language-side design prevents you from controlling >>>> interpreter from outside. >>>> A less painful way for achieving a kind of embedding, as Andreas >>>> mentioned, that you can write the >>>> plugin which using callback machinery and create an image which >>>> simpli >>>> 'listening' for calls from outside >>>> then handle them and put response back. >>>> But i can't tell, how efficient it could be comparing to Lua >>>> scripting >>>> interface. >>>> >>>> For instance, if i would want to enable the dynamic primitive >>>> publishing (which host application may want to >>>> use), then this would require VM changes. >>>> That's why i proposed , some time ago, to modify the VM internal >>>> infrastructure to have a kind of namespace, >>>> which is dynamically built-up using associations of symbols (C >>>> strings) with some pointer/values. >>>> Then you can publish primitives at any time you wanting to, replace >>>> them at run time and do many other >>>> kind of tricks, which is possible, when function pointer is not >>>> bound >>>> at compile time, but discovered by VM >>>> at run time. At some point we could even use a JIT to generate the >>>> primitives and then let VM to pick them up at run time. >>>> This means, that at some point you could JIT everything you need, >>>> and >>>> replace the C-compiled VM stuff after booting the >>>> image, and from now on, VM is not something which is made from >>>> stone >>>> like all C-compiled binaries. So different >>>> images could carry own system inside which, once its booted up, no >>>> longer needs the statically compiled crap. >>>> This also means, that by having a good JIT and VM tuned for this, >>>> we >>>> don't really need writing any C code anymore, because >>>> main reason why we doing this is speed and easy interoperability >>>> with >>>> host environment. :) >>>> >>>>> Stef >>>>> >>>>> On Sep 18, 2009, at 6:40 PM, Lawson English wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Johan Brichau wrote: >>>>>>> On 16 Sep 2009, at 20:37, Ken Treis wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> * I'm creating a partial Alien library for GemStone so that I >>>>>>>> can >>>>>>>> use the CairoGraphics package in both Pharo and GLASS. But on >>>>>>>> x86-64, there there's a size difference between a pointer/long >>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>> an integer. It'd be nice to have some more explicit APIs on >>>>>>>> Alien, >>>>>>>> so I could say "Alien newCInteger" or "Alien newCLong" and have >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>> platform return me the proper size Alien. Even without the >>>>>>>> platform >>>>>>>> size differences, it seems awkward to use "Alien newC: 4" >>>>>>>> everywhere >>>>>>>> I want an integer, "Alien newC: 8" where I want a double, etc. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Exactly. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> It becomes worse once you start having structs and nested >>>>>>> structs >>>>>>> or >>>>>>> structs with pointers to structs ;-) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I'm using Alien as the FFI to port JavaConnect from Visualworks >>>>>>> to >>>>>>> Pharo/Squeak. As you say, it is a pain to work at such a low- >>>>>>> level >>>>>>> compared to the DLLCC in VW. I am planning to do some work on >>>>>>> creating >>>>>>> a higher-level interface for it such that we can operate it as >>>>>>> you >>>>>>> mention, including the correct bytesizes for all platforms. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> At the moment, I'm mostly focusing on getting the port to work >>>>>>> right >>>>>>> before I start creating an interface on top of the current Alien >>>>>>> interface. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Something to keep in mind is the need for a straightforward way >>>>>> of >>>>>> going >>>>>> the other way: John Mcintosh's port of the Squeak VM to iPhone >>>>>> implies >>>>>> that the same thing could be done in other Lua-ish situations, >>>>>> allowing >>>>>> people to use smalltalk syntax for game scripting. With the right >>>>>> libraries for an IDE, I would think squeak could be very >>>>>> attractive to >>>>>> at least some people in place of/in addition to using Lua. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Lawson >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo- >>>>>> project >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo- >>>>> project >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Best regards, >>>> Igor Stasenko AKA sig. >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Pharo-project mailing list >>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Best regards, >> Igor Stasenko AKA sig. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Pharo-project mailing list >> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project > > -- > Stefan Marr > Software Languages Lab > Former Programming Technology Lab > Vrije Universiteit Brussel > Pleinlaan 2 / B-1050 Brussels / Belgium > http://prog.vub.ac.be/~smarr > Phone: +32 2 629 3956 > Fax: +32 2 629 3525 > > > _______________________________________________ > Pharo-project mailing list > Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project

Sept. 19, 2009

Re: [Pharo-project] Status of Alien FFI

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

Hi stefan do you what they are really comparing? because Smalltalk looks mysterious to me. Stef On Sep 19, 2009, at 10:41 AM, Stefan Marr wrote: > > On 19 Sep 2009, at 08:46, Igor Stasenko wrote: > >> Lua is SLOW :) > >> But still - you can go and see the speed comparison of different >> numerical algorythms implemented in different languages. >> Squeak leaves Lua far behind.. > That sounds like FUD. > But, maybe I misunderstand you here. > > However, Lua 5.x is FAST, especially for an interpreted language. Its > register-based implementation seems to be much better for > interpretation in terms of speed than the stack-based bytecode in > Squeak. > > See: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=lua&lang2… > > And: Virtual Machine Showdown: Stack Versus Registers > Yunhe Shi and Kevin Casey and M. Anton Ertl and David Gregg > ACM Trans. Archit. Code Optim.4(4):1--36(2008) > > > Best regards > Stefan > >> Especially, i think, if you use language for scripting, so scripts >> will tend to contain more logic than heavy numeric crunching (because >> for numerical crunching hardcore devs using C & GPU) - smalltalk will >> win even more. >> >>> Stef >>> >>> On Sep 19, 2009, at 5:28 AM, Igor Stasenko wrote: >>> >>>> 2009/9/18 StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr>: >>>>> yes this is one of my dream but .... >>>>> I'm not good enough to make it come true. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Lua is specifically designed from the very starting to live well as >>>> embedded system, written in C. No wonder that its having very >>>> good C >>>> interoperability. >>>> And that's why, at the time i found the smalltalk, first thing i >>>> thought, that >>>> creating an interoperability layer between C and smalltalk will >>>> unleash its potential >>>> for use in scripting. >>>> Unfortunately, almost every implementation i found & read about >>>> smalltalk vere designed as a >>>> self-sustained (or self-sufficient) sandboxed environment with a >>>> little care about host interoperability in mind. >>>> Even existence of FFI in Squeak doesn't changes that, because >>>> Squeak >>>> VM architecture >>>> as well as language-side design prevents you from controlling >>>> interpreter from outside. >>>> A less painful way for achieving a kind of embedding, as Andreas >>>> mentioned, that you can write the >>>> plugin which using callback machinery and create an image which >>>> simpli >>>> 'listening' for calls from outside >>>> then handle them and put response back. >>>> But i can't tell, how efficient it could be comparing to Lua >>>> scripting >>>> interface. >>>> >>>> For instance, if i would want to enable the dynamic primitive >>>> publishing (which host application may want to >>>> use), then this would require VM changes. >>>> That's why i proposed , some time ago, to modify the VM internal >>>> infrastructure to have a kind of namespace, >>>> which is dynamically built-up using associations of symbols (C >>>> strings) with some pointer/values. >>>> Then you can publish primitives at any time you wanting to, replace >>>> them at run time and do many other >>>> kind of tricks, which is possible, when function pointer is not >>>> bound >>>> at compile time, but discovered by VM >>>> at run time. At some point we could even use a JIT to generate the >>>> primitives and then let VM to pick them up at run time. >>>> This means, that at some point you could JIT everything you need, >>>> and >>>> replace the C-compiled VM stuff after booting the >>>> image, and from now on, VM is not something which is made from >>>> stone >>>> like all C-compiled binaries. So different >>>> images could carry own system inside which, once its booted up, no >>>> longer needs the statically compiled crap. >>>> This also means, that by having a good JIT and VM tuned for this, >>>> we >>>> don't really need writing any C code anymore, because >>>> main reason why we doing this is speed and easy interoperability >>>> with >>>> host environment. :) >>>> >>>>> Stef >>>>> >>>>> On Sep 18, 2009, at 6:40 PM, Lawson English wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Johan Brichau wrote: >>>>>>> On 16 Sep 2009, at 20:37, Ken Treis wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> * I'm creating a partial Alien library for GemStone so that I >>>>>>>> can >>>>>>>> use the CairoGraphics package in both Pharo and GLASS. But on >>>>>>>> x86-64, there there's a size difference between a pointer/long >>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>> an integer. It'd be nice to have some more explicit APIs on >>>>>>>> Alien, >>>>>>>> so I could say "Alien newCInteger" or "Alien newCLong" and have >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>> platform return me the proper size Alien. Even without the >>>>>>>> platform >>>>>>>> size differences, it seems awkward to use "Alien newC: 4" >>>>>>>> everywhere >>>>>>>> I want an integer, "Alien newC: 8" where I want a double, etc. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Exactly. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> It becomes worse once you start having structs and nested >>>>>>> structs >>>>>>> or >>>>>>> structs with pointers to structs ;-) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I'm using Alien as the FFI to port JavaConnect from Visualworks >>>>>>> to >>>>>>> Pharo/Squeak. As you say, it is a pain to work at such a low- >>>>>>> level >>>>>>> compared to the DLLCC in VW. I am planning to do some work on >>>>>>> creating >>>>>>> a higher-level interface for it such that we can operate it as >>>>>>> you >>>>>>> mention, including the correct bytesizes for all platforms. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> At the moment, I'm mostly focusing on getting the port to work >>>>>>> right >>>>>>> before I start creating an interface on top of the current Alien >>>>>>> interface. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Something to keep in mind is the need for a straightforward way >>>>>> of >>>>>> going >>>>>> the other way: John Mcintosh's port of the Squeak VM to iPhone >>>>>> implies >>>>>> that the same thing could be done in other Lua-ish situations, >>>>>> allowing >>>>>> people to use smalltalk syntax for game scripting. With the right >>>>>> libraries for an IDE, I would think squeak could be very >>>>>> attractive to >>>>>> at least some people in place of/in addition to using Lua. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Lawson >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo- >>>>>> project >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo- >>>>> project >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Best regards, >>>> Igor Stasenko AKA sig. >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Pharo-project mailing list >>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Best regards, >> Igor Stasenko AKA sig. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Pharo-project mailing list >> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project > > -- > Stefan Marr > Software Languages Lab > Former Programming Technology Lab > Vrije Universiteit Brussel > Pleinlaan 2 / B-1050 Brussels / Belgium > http://prog.vub.ac.be/~smarr > Phone: +32 2 629 3956 > Fax: +32 2 629 3525 > > > _______________________________________________ > Pharo-project mailing list > Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project

Sept. 19, 2009

Re: [Pharo-project] Status of Alien FFI

by Stefan Marr

On 19 Sep 2009, at 08:46, Igor Stasenko wrote: > Lua is SLOW :) > But still - you can go and see the speed comparison of different > numerical algorythms implemented in different languages. > Squeak leaves Lua far behind.. That sounds like FUD. But, maybe I misunderstand you here. However, Lua 5.x is FAST, especially for an interpreted language. Its register-based implementation seems to be much better for interpretation in terms of speed than the stack-based bytecode in Squeak. See: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=lua&lang2… And: Virtual Machine Showdown: Stack Versus Registers Yunhe Shi and Kevin Casey and M. Anton Ertl and David Gregg ACM Trans. Archit. Code Optim.4(4):1--36(2008) Best regards Stefan > Especially, i think, if you use language for scripting, so scripts > will tend to contain more logic than heavy numeric crunching (because > for numerical crunching hardcore devs using C & GPU) - smalltalk will > win even more. > >> Stef >> >> On Sep 19, 2009, at 5:28 AM, Igor Stasenko wrote: >> >>> 2009/9/18 StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr>: >>>> yes this is one of my dream but .... >>>> I'm not good enough to make it come true. >>>> >>> >>> Lua is specifically designed from the very starting to live well as >>> embedded system, written in C. No wonder that its having very good C >>> interoperability. >>> And that's why, at the time i found the smalltalk, first thing i >>> thought, that >>> creating an interoperability layer between C and smalltalk will >>> unleash its potential >>> for use in scripting. >>> Unfortunately, almost every implementation i found & read about >>> smalltalk vere designed as a >>> self-sustained (or self-sufficient) sandboxed environment with a >>> little care about host interoperability in mind. >>> Even existence of FFI in Squeak doesn't changes that, because Squeak >>> VM architecture >>> as well as language-side design prevents you from controlling >>> interpreter from outside. >>> A less painful way for achieving a kind of embedding, as Andreas >>> mentioned, that you can write the >>> plugin which using callback machinery and create an image which >>> simpli >>> 'listening' for calls from outside >>> then handle them and put response back. >>> But i can't tell, how efficient it could be comparing to Lua >>> scripting >>> interface. >>> >>> For instance, if i would want to enable the dynamic primitive >>> publishing (which host application may want to >>> use), then this would require VM changes. >>> That's why i proposed , some time ago, to modify the VM internal >>> infrastructure to have a kind of namespace, >>> which is dynamically built-up using associations of symbols (C >>> strings) with some pointer/values. >>> Then you can publish primitives at any time you wanting to, replace >>> them at run time and do many other >>> kind of tricks, which is possible, when function pointer is not >>> bound >>> at compile time, but discovered by VM >>> at run time. At some point we could even use a JIT to generate the >>> primitives and then let VM to pick them up at run time. >>> This means, that at some point you could JIT everything you need, >>> and >>> replace the C-compiled VM stuff after booting the >>> image, and from now on, VM is not something which is made from stone >>> like all C-compiled binaries. So different >>> images could carry own system inside which, once its booted up, no >>> longer needs the statically compiled crap. >>> This also means, that by having a good JIT and VM tuned for this, we >>> don't really need writing any C code anymore, because >>> main reason why we doing this is speed and easy interoperability >>> with >>> host environment. :) >>> >>>> Stef >>>> >>>> On Sep 18, 2009, at 6:40 PM, Lawson English wrote: >>>> >>>>> Johan Brichau wrote: >>>>>> On 16 Sep 2009, at 20:37, Ken Treis wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> * I'm creating a partial Alien library for GemStone so that I >>>>>>> can >>>>>>> use the CairoGraphics package in both Pharo and GLASS. But on >>>>>>> x86-64, there there's a size difference between a pointer/long >>>>>>> and >>>>>>> an integer. It'd be nice to have some more explicit APIs on >>>>>>> Alien, >>>>>>> so I could say "Alien newCInteger" or "Alien newCLong" and have >>>>>>> the >>>>>>> platform return me the proper size Alien. Even without the >>>>>>> platform >>>>>>> size differences, it seems awkward to use "Alien newC: 4" >>>>>>> everywhere >>>>>>> I want an integer, "Alien newC: 8" where I want a double, etc. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Exactly. >>>>>> >>>>>> It becomes worse once you start having structs and nested structs >>>>>> or >>>>>> structs with pointers to structs ;-) >>>>>> >>>>>> I'm using Alien as the FFI to port JavaConnect from Visualworks >>>>>> to >>>>>> Pharo/Squeak. As you say, it is a pain to work at such a low- >>>>>> level >>>>>> compared to the DLLCC in VW. I am planning to do some work on >>>>>> creating >>>>>> a higher-level interface for it such that we can operate it as >>>>>> you >>>>>> mention, including the correct bytesizes for all platforms. >>>>>> >>>>>> At the moment, I'm mostly focusing on getting the port to work >>>>>> right >>>>>> before I start creating an interface on top of the current Alien >>>>>> interface. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Something to keep in mind is the need for a straightforward way of >>>>> going >>>>> the other way: John Mcintosh's port of the Squeak VM to iPhone >>>>> implies >>>>> that the same thing could be done in other Lua-ish situations, >>>>> allowing >>>>> people to use smalltalk syntax for game scripting. With the right >>>>> libraries for an IDE, I would think squeak could be very >>>>> attractive to >>>>> at least some people in place of/in addition to using Lua. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Lawson >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo- >>>>> project >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Best regards, >>> Igor Stasenko AKA sig. >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Pharo-project mailing list >>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Pharo-project mailing list >> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >> > > > > -- > Best regards, > Igor Stasenko AKA sig. > > _______________________________________________ > Pharo-project mailing list > Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project -- Stefan Marr Software Languages Lab Former Programming Technology Lab Vrije Universiteit Brussel Pleinlaan 2 / B-1050 Brussels / Belgium http://prog.vub.ac.be/~smarr Phone: +32 2 629 3956 Fax: +32 2 629 3525

Sept. 19, 2009

Re: [Pharo-project] Status of Alien FFI

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

probably but from a research vehicule perspective having a clean system is a big win. stef On Sep 19, 2009, at 8:46 AM, Igor Stasenko wrote: > 2009/9/19 StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr>: >> in fact the meta level interface of the VM is missing. >> And I would love to have what you describe. >> When I was tired by smalltalk I was thikning to build one on top of >> lua. >> > > Lua is SLOW :) > Once i recommended one game developer to use Lua for scripting.. > and he wired it into C project pretty easily.. but instead of writing > glue code which precompiling > all scripts, he decided to not spend much time on it and parse the > scripts from source each time he may need to run it.. > The surprise was, that despite this crappy binding, game running at a > decent frame rate :) > But still - you can go and see the speed comparison of different > numerical algorythms implemented in different languages. > Squeak leaves Lua far behind.. > Especially, i think, if you use language for scripting, so scripts > will tend to contain more logic than heavy numeric crunching (because > for numerical crunching hardcore devs using C & GPU) - smalltalk will > win even more. > >> Stef >> >> On Sep 19, 2009, at 5:28 AM, Igor Stasenko wrote: >> >>> 2009/9/18 StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr>: >>>> yes this is one of my dream but .... >>>> I'm not good enough to make it come true. >>>> >>> >>> Lua is specifically designed from the very starting to live well as >>> embedded system, written in C. No wonder that its having very good C >>> interoperability. >>> And that's why, at the time i found the smalltalk, first thing i >>> thought, that >>> creating an interoperability layer between C and smalltalk will >>> unleash its potential >>> for use in scripting. >>> Unfortunately, almost every implementation i found & read about >>> smalltalk vere designed as a >>> self-sustained (or self-sufficient) sandboxed environment with a >>> little care about host interoperability in mind. >>> Even existence of FFI in Squeak doesn't changes that, because Squeak >>> VM architecture >>> as well as language-side design prevents you from controlling >>> interpreter from outside. >>> A less painful way for achieving a kind of embedding, as Andreas >>> mentioned, that you can write the >>> plugin which using callback machinery and create an image which >>> simpli >>> 'listening' for calls from outside >>> then handle them and put response back. >>> But i can't tell, how efficient it could be comparing to Lua >>> scripting >>> interface. >>> >>> For instance, if i would want to enable the dynamic primitive >>> publishing (which host application may want to >>> use), then this would require VM changes. >>> That's why i proposed , some time ago, to modify the VM internal >>> infrastructure to have a kind of namespace, >>> which is dynamically built-up using associations of symbols (C >>> strings) with some pointer/values. >>> Then you can publish primitives at any time you wanting to, replace >>> them at run time and do many other >>> kind of tricks, which is possible, when function pointer is not >>> bound >>> at compile time, but discovered by VM >>> at run time. At some point we could even use a JIT to generate the >>> primitives and then let VM to pick them up at run time. >>> This means, that at some point you could JIT everything you need, >>> and >>> replace the C-compiled VM stuff after booting the >>> image, and from now on, VM is not something which is made from stone >>> like all C-compiled binaries. So different >>> images could carry own system inside which, once its booted up, no >>> longer needs the statically compiled crap. >>> This also means, that by having a good JIT and VM tuned for this, we >>> don't really need writing any C code anymore, because >>> main reason why we doing this is speed and easy interoperability >>> with >>> host environment. :) >>> >>>> Stef >>>> >>>> On Sep 18, 2009, at 6:40 PM, Lawson English wrote: >>>> >>>>> Johan Brichau wrote: >>>>>> On 16 Sep 2009, at 20:37, Ken Treis wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> * I'm creating a partial Alien library for GemStone so that I >>>>>>> can >>>>>>> use the CairoGraphics package in both Pharo and GLASS. But on >>>>>>> x86-64, there there's a size difference between a pointer/long >>>>>>> and >>>>>>> an integer. It'd be nice to have some more explicit APIs on >>>>>>> Alien, >>>>>>> so I could say "Alien newCInteger" or "Alien newCLong" and have >>>>>>> the >>>>>>> platform return me the proper size Alien. Even without the >>>>>>> platform >>>>>>> size differences, it seems awkward to use "Alien newC: 4" >>>>>>> everywhere >>>>>>> I want an integer, "Alien newC: 8" where I want a double, etc. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Exactly. >>>>>> >>>>>> It becomes worse once you start having structs and nested structs >>>>>> or >>>>>> structs with pointers to structs ;-) >>>>>> >>>>>> I'm using Alien as the FFI to port JavaConnect from Visualworks >>>>>> to >>>>>> Pharo/Squeak. As you say, it is a pain to work at such a low- >>>>>> level >>>>>> compared to the DLLCC in VW. I am planning to do some work on >>>>>> creating >>>>>> a higher-level interface for it such that we can operate it as >>>>>> you >>>>>> mention, including the correct bytesizes for all platforms. >>>>>> >>>>>> At the moment, I'm mostly focusing on getting the port to work >>>>>> right >>>>>> before I start creating an interface on top of the current Alien >>>>>> interface. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Something to keep in mind is the need for a straightforward way of >>>>> going >>>>> the other way: John Mcintosh's port of the Squeak VM to iPhone >>>>> implies >>>>> that the same thing could be done in other Lua-ish situations, >>>>> allowing >>>>> people to use smalltalk syntax for game scripting. With the right >>>>> libraries for an IDE, I would think squeak could be very >>>>> attractive to >>>>> at least some people in place of/in addition to using Lua. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Lawson >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo- >>>>> project >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Best regards, >>> Igor Stasenko AKA sig. >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Pharo-project mailing list >>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Pharo-project mailing list >> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >> > > > > -- > Best regards, > Igor Stasenko AKA sig. > > _______________________________________________ > Pharo-project mailing list > Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project

Sept. 19, 2009

Re: [Pharo-project] Status of Alien FFI

by Igor Stasenko

2009/9/19 StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr>: > in fact the meta level interface of the VM is missing. > And I would love to have what you describe. > When I was tired by smalltalk I was thikning to build one on top of lua. > Lua is SLOW :) Once i recommended one game developer to use Lua for scripting.. and he wired it into C project pretty easily.. but instead of writing glue code which precompiling all scripts, he decided to not spend much time on it and parse the scripts from source each time he may need to run it.. The surprise was, that despite this crappy binding, game running at a decent frame rate :) But still - you can go and see the speed comparison of different numerical algorythms implemented in different languages. Squeak leaves Lua far behind.. Especially, i think, if you use language for scripting, so scripts will tend to contain more logic than heavy numeric crunching (because for numerical crunching hardcore devs using C & GPU) - smalltalk will win even more. > Stef > > On Sep 19, 2009, at 5:28 AM, Igor Stasenko wrote: > >> 2009/9/18 StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr>: >>> yes this is one of my dream but .... >>> I'm not good enough to make it come true. >>> >> >> Lua is specifically designed from the very starting to live well as >> embedded system, written in C. No wonder that its having very good C >> interoperability. >> And that's why, at the time i found the smalltalk, first thing i >> thought, that >> creating an interoperability layer between C and smalltalk will >> unleash its potential >> for use in scripting. >> Unfortunately, almost every implementation i found & read about >> smalltalk vere designed as a >> self-sustained (or self-sufficient) sandboxed environment with a >> little care about host interoperability in mind. >> Even existence of FFI in Squeak doesn't changes that, because Squeak >> VM architecture >> as well as language-side design prevents you from controlling >> interpreter from outside. >> A less painful way for achieving a kind of embedding, as Andreas >> mentioned, that you can write the >> plugin which using callback machinery and create an image which simpli >> 'listening' for calls from outside >> then handle them and put response back. >> But i can't tell, how efficient it could be comparing to Lua scripting >> interface. >> >> For instance, if i would want to enable the dynamic primitive >> publishing (which host application may want to >> use), then this would require VM changes. >> That's why i proposed , some time ago, to modify the VM internal >> infrastructure to have a kind of namespace, >> which is dynamically built-up using associations of symbols (C >> strings) with some pointer/values. >> Then you can publish primitives at any time you wanting to, replace >> them at run time and do many other >> kind of tricks, which is possible, when function pointer is not bound >> at compile time, but discovered by VM >> at run time. At some point we could even use a JIT to generate the >> primitives and then let VM to pick them up at run time. >> This means, that at some point you could JIT everything you need, and >> replace the C-compiled VM stuff after booting the >> image, and from now on, VM is not something which is made from stone >> like all C-compiled binaries. So different >> images could carry own system inside which, once its booted up, no >> longer needs the statically compiled crap. >> This also means, that by having a good JIT and VM tuned for this, we >> don't really need writing any C code anymore, because >> main reason why we doing this is speed and easy interoperability with >> host environment. :) >> >>> Stef >>> >>> On Sep 18, 2009, at 6:40 PM, Lawson English wrote: >>> >>>> Johan Brichau wrote: >>>>> On 16 Sep 2009, at 20:37, Ken Treis wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> * I'm creating a partial Alien library for GemStone so that I can >>>>>> use the CairoGraphics package in both Pharo and GLASS. But on >>>>>> x86-64, there there's a size difference between a pointer/long and >>>>>> an integer. It'd be nice to have some more explicit APIs on Alien, >>>>>> so I could say "Alien newCInteger" or "Alien newCLong" and have >>>>>> the >>>>>> platform return me the proper size Alien. Even without the >>>>>> platform >>>>>> size differences, it seems awkward to use "Alien newC: 4" >>>>>> everywhere >>>>>> I want an integer, "Alien newC: 8" where I want a double, etc. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Exactly. >>>>> >>>>> It becomes worse once you start having structs and nested structs >>>>> or >>>>> structs with pointers to structs ;-) >>>>> >>>>> I'm using Alien as the FFI to port JavaConnect from Visualworks to >>>>> Pharo/Squeak. As you say, it is a pain to work at such a low-level >>>>> compared to the DLLCC in VW. I am planning to do some work on >>>>> creating >>>>> a higher-level interface for it such that we can operate it as you >>>>> mention, including the correct bytesizes for all platforms. >>>>> >>>>> At the moment, I'm mostly focusing on getting the port to work >>>>> right >>>>> before I start creating an interface on top of the current Alien >>>>> interface. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> Something to keep in mind is the need for a straightforward way of >>>> going >>>> the other way: John Mcintosh's port of the Squeak VM to iPhone >>>> implies >>>> that the same thing could be done in other Lua-ish situations, >>>> allowing >>>> people to use smalltalk syntax for game scripting. With the right >>>> libraries for an IDE, I would think squeak could be very >>>> attractive to >>>> at least some people in place of/in addition to using Lua. >>>> >>>> >>>> Lawson >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Pharo-project mailing list >>>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Pharo-project mailing list >>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Best regards, >> Igor Stasenko AKA sig. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Pharo-project mailing list >> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project > > > _______________________________________________ > Pharo-project mailing list > Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project > -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

Sept. 19, 2009

[Pharo-project] plan for pharo release candidates

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

Hi all I did not integrate some pending changes because I would like to give priority to the closure fixes. Now I do not have the time to really look at them and I'm not expert in the changes made. So if someone wants to help this is the time. We will have in 3 weeks the pharo sprint and I think that this is not a great time to do that. I will be busy again this week with my day job and no time for pharo this week. Sorry. Stef

Sept. 19, 2009

[Pharo-project] Fwd: Status of Alien FFI

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

Begin forwarded message: > From: Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda(a)gmail.com> > Date: September 19, 2009 12:44:43 AM CEDT > To: StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr> > Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] Status of Alien FFI > > On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 12:29 AM, StÃ©phane Ducasse > <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr> wrote: >> >> >> Begin forwarded message: >> >>> From: Martin McClure <martin(a)hand2mouse.com> >>> Date: September 18, 2009 12:57:43 AM CEDT >>> To: Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>> Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] Status of Alien FFI >>> Reply-To: Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>> >>> Johan Brichau wrote: >>>> >>>> On 16 Sep 2009, at 20:37, Ken Treis wrote: >>>> >>>>> * I'm creating a partial Alien library for GemStone so that I can >>>>> use the CairoGraphics package in both Pharo and GLASS. But on >>>>> x86-64, there there's a size difference between a pointer/long and >>>>> an integer. It'd be nice to have some more explicit APIs on Alien, >>>>> so I could say "Alien newCInteger" or "Alien newCLong" and have >>>>> the >>>>> platform return me the proper size Alien. Even without the >>>>> platform >>>>> size differences, it seems awkward to use "Alien newC: 4" >>>>> everywhere >>>>> I want an integer, "Alien newC: 8" where I want a double, etc. >>>> >>>> Exactly. >>>> >>>> It becomes worse once you start having structs and nested structs >>>> or >>>> structs with pointers to structs ;-) >>>> >>>> I'm using Alien as the FFI to port JavaConnect from Visualworks to >>>> Pharo/Squeak. As you say, it is a pain to work at such a low-level >>>> compared to the DLLCC in VW. I am planning to do some work on >>>> creating >>>> a higher-level interface for it such that we can operate it as you >>>> mention, including the correct bytesizes for all platforms. >>>> >>>> At the moment, I'm mostly focusing on getting the port to work >>>> right >>>> before I start creating an interface on top of the current Alien >>>> interface. >>> >>> I'd like to work toward a standard FFI that works across many >>> Smalltalk >>> dialects. Right now, it's too hard to port packages such as >>> CairoGraphics that call large external libraries. A year ago, I >>> tried >>> porting CairoGraphics from VW to an early version of GemStone's >>> FFI. It >>> was way too much work. >>> >>> And GemStone/S 64-bit 3.0, due out probably sometime next year, will >>> have a completely new FFI. It's probably not too late to influence >>> the >>> design for better compatibility. >>> >>> Is Alien, possibly with some changes, a suitable cross-platform >>> cross-dialect FFI standard? Or is it too low-level? > > I think it is OK as a substrate for data representation but not for > calls. It is a little low-level but also a lot simpler and easier to > use than CDatum et al. I'm attaching the doc and you ca make up your > own mind. > > >>> >>> Regards, >>> >>> -Martin >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Pharo-project mailing list >>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >> >>

Sept. 19, 2009

Re: [Pharo-project] Status of Alien FFI

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

in fact the meta level interface of the VM is missing. And I would love to have what you describe. When I was tired by smalltalk I was thikning to build one on top of lua. Stef On Sep 19, 2009, at 5:28 AM, Igor Stasenko wrote: > 2009/9/18 StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr>: >> yes this is one of my dream but .... >> I'm not good enough to make it come true. >> > > Lua is specifically designed from the very starting to live well as > embedded system, written in C. No wonder that its having very good C > interoperability. > And that's why, at the time i found the smalltalk, first thing i > thought, that > creating an interoperability layer between C and smalltalk will > unleash its potential > for use in scripting. > Unfortunately, almost every implementation i found & read about > smalltalk vere designed as a > self-sustained (or self-sufficient) sandboxed environment with a > little care about host interoperability in mind. > Even existence of FFI in Squeak doesn't changes that, because Squeak > VM architecture > as well as language-side design prevents you from controlling > interpreter from outside. > A less painful way for achieving a kind of embedding, as Andreas > mentioned, that you can write the > plugin which using callback machinery and create an image which simpli > 'listening' for calls from outside > then handle them and put response back. > But i can't tell, how efficient it could be comparing to Lua scripting > interface. > > For instance, if i would want to enable the dynamic primitive > publishing (which host application may want to > use), then this would require VM changes. > That's why i proposed , some time ago, to modify the VM internal > infrastructure to have a kind of namespace, > which is dynamically built-up using associations of symbols (C > strings) with some pointer/values. > Then you can publish primitives at any time you wanting to, replace > them at run time and do many other > kind of tricks, which is possible, when function pointer is not bound > at compile time, but discovered by VM > at run time. At some point we could even use a JIT to generate the > primitives and then let VM to pick them up at run time. > This means, that at some point you could JIT everything you need, and > replace the C-compiled VM stuff after booting the > image, and from now on, VM is not something which is made from stone > like all C-compiled binaries. So different > images could carry own system inside which, once its booted up, no > longer needs the statically compiled crap. > This also means, that by having a good JIT and VM tuned for this, we > don't really need writing any C code anymore, because > main reason why we doing this is speed and easy interoperability with > host environment. :) > >> Stef >> >> On Sep 18, 2009, at 6:40 PM, Lawson English wrote: >> >>> Johan Brichau wrote: >>>> On 16 Sep 2009, at 20:37, Ken Treis wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> * I'm creating a partial Alien library for GemStone so that I can >>>>> use the CairoGraphics package in both Pharo and GLASS. But on >>>>> x86-64, there there's a size difference between a pointer/long and >>>>> an integer. It'd be nice to have some more explicit APIs on Alien, >>>>> so I could say "Alien newCInteger" or "Alien newCLong" and have >>>>> the >>>>> platform return me the proper size Alien. Even without the >>>>> platform >>>>> size differences, it seems awkward to use "Alien newC: 4" >>>>> everywhere >>>>> I want an integer, "Alien newC: 8" where I want a double, etc. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Exactly. >>>> >>>> It becomes worse once you start having structs and nested structs >>>> or >>>> structs with pointers to structs ;-) >>>> >>>> I'm using Alien as the FFI to port JavaConnect from Visualworks to >>>> Pharo/Squeak. As you say, it is a pain to work at such a low-level >>>> compared to the DLLCC in VW. I am planning to do some work on >>>> creating >>>> a higher-level interface for it such that we can operate it as you >>>> mention, including the correct bytesizes for all platforms. >>>> >>>> At the moment, I'm mostly focusing on getting the port to work >>>> right >>>> before I start creating an interface on top of the current Alien >>>> interface. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> Something to keep in mind is the need for a straightforward way of >>> going >>> the other way: John Mcintosh's port of the Squeak VM to iPhone >>> implies >>> that the same thing could be done in other Lua-ish situations, >>> allowing >>> people to use smalltalk syntax for game scripting. With the right >>> libraries for an IDE, I would think squeak could be very >>> attractive to >>> at least some people in place of/in addition to using Lua. >>> >>> >>> Lawson >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Pharo-project mailing list >>> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >>> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Pharo-project mailing list >> Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr >> http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project >> > > > > -- > Best regards, > Igor Stasenko AKA sig. > > _______________________________________________ > Pharo-project mailing list > Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project

Sept. 19, 2009