Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
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From: sehyo@netcom.com (Sehyo Chang)
Subject: Re: About Smalltalk virtual machine,  Any documentation / books on this ?
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Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 04:05:21 GMT
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Peter Liu (peterl@hk.super.net) wrote:
: 1. Do Smalltalks use the same virtual machine or byte code standard ?

: 2. How can I find references to the Smalltalk virtual machine.

: 3. Is it possible to make a Smalltalk that produce Java byte code so
: that we can run Smalltalk program across the Internet.

: 4. In other words: Can Java virtual machine do all the jobs of a
: Smalltalk virtual machine.


Smalltalk uses virtual machine but it is not standard like XJ30 which
only standarized language and common classes.  Maybe comitte should
work on virtual machine standard like Java.  Each vendors have different
VM and API.

Best references are classic: "Smalltalk-80 The Language and its
Implementation" by Goldberd and Robson. This is a original "blue book" not
the later orange version.  Unfortunately It is out of print.  You can
try to look for at used book store. 

My understanding is that it is difficult to translate Smalltalk into
Java byte code with current Java VM.  Java VM seems to be optimized for
typed objects.  Some people at Sun talked about supporting more "dynamic"
language like Lisp or Smalltalk.  I believe though that this is misplaced
strategy.  It would be very difficult to build good common high performance
VM that can run Java and SMalltalk. It would be more appropriate to integrate
Smalltalk VM with Java objects.

-- sehyo
