�

On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 9:08 AM, Ricardo Moran <richi.moran@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, indeed. Right now, for most use cases we use the SerialPort class, but we still have some FFI code for other stuff hanging around. I plan to write it as a plugin as soon as I have the time.

But getting the FFI working on ARM and/or PPC is more effective than writing yet another plugin, no? �We can always add security to the FFI (essentially some way of disabling internal calls within the FFI plugin, e.g. based on cryptographic keys to enable it, or whatever). �So I really do appeal to people to help me put the effort in here. �I can't justify working on the FFI on ARM or PPC in my Cadence Newspeak gig; we're entirely on x86. �I /can/ work on the threaded FFI as we need it at Cadence, just as many other people need it. �But for me to move the threaded FFI ahead it needs to be on all platforms and that means I need help on the platforms I can't justify working on.

So folks, please give serious consideration to putting effort into something that may be a little harder at first but will yield major benefits slightly later. �Let's defer gratification :)

�

Cheers,

RIcho

On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 10:37 AM, Bert Freudenberg <bert@freudenbergs.de> wrote:

It's not part of Etoys yet. If its low-level interface indeed requires FFI, then that interface would have to be rewritten as plugin for Etoys to include it.

- Bert -

On 22.07.2011, at 14:55, karl ramberg wrote:

What about the Physical Etoys project ?

http://tecnodacta.com.ar/gira/projects/physical-etoys/

�

Karl

On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 2:20 PM, Bert Freudenberg <bert@freudenbergs.de> wrote:

On 22.07.2011, at 02:10, Eliot Miranda wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 4:57 PM, Igor Stasenko <siguctua@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22 July 2011 02:34, Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi All,
> > � � today I committed the threaded FFI plugin along with the threaded VM and
> > hope to be able to support people in doing threaded FFI work on the x86
> > platforms really soon now (Esteban, amongst others, this means you ;) ).
> > �But to put the image-level code that uses the new FFI plugin into
> > production the standard VM needs to be upgraded to not crash with the
> > ExternalFunction image changes the new threaded FFI plugin wants. �The main
> > change is that ExternalFunction changes size, gaining a stackSize inst var
> > which is used to tell the FFI plugin how much stack spacer to reserve for
> > marshalling (its computed on first use). �The best way for this to happen is
> > to start using the ThreadedFFIPlugin as the standard plugin in the
> > Interpreter VM. The ThreadedFFIPlugin overall is simpler than the old FFI
> > plugin (no assembler support code) and better (fully reentrant). �But for
> > this to happen we may need to implement the platform=specific parts of
> > the ThreadedFFIPlugin (still entirely Smalltalk code) for PowerPC and ARM
> > (and perhaps others, SPARC??). �I understand what has to be done and I can
> > explain it to anyone interested in working on the problem, but I don't have
> > any hardware with which I can test the results so its pretty pointless my
> > doing the work and producing something inevitably broken. �So are there
> > people out there who would be interested in doing the port to PPC and ARM?
> > �It means fleshing out the classes
> > � � ThreadedARMFFIPlugin ThreadedFFICalloutStateForARM
> > � � ThreadedPPCBEFFIPlugin ThreadedFFICalloutStateForPPC
> > and having a solid understanding of how alloca works to do stack allocation
> > and how the ABIs on ARM and PPC pass registers.
> > here's hoping there are a few good low-level people who would be interested.
> > Let me know.
>
> I wonder if you find anyone today using these archs, not saying using
> squeak/pharo on them + knowing low-level details + wanting to help :)
>
> Right, chances are thin. �But then if no one is interested then the work doesn't need to be done. �Bert, you mentioned the other day that PPC was still relevant for etoys. �But am I right in thinking etoys never uses the FFI?

Right. Etoys should run on both ARM and PPC, but it does not use FFI.

- Bert -

--
best,

Eliot