"I have a mind like a steel... uh... thingy." Patrick Logan's weblog.

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Wednesday, August 13, 2003

VM-volution

From James' Cincom Smalltalk blog...

Also of interest is the fact that the JVM remains frozen, making sure that actual progress in Java-land is limited. Microsoft seems to realize that's a mistake, and looks like they will be extending and changing the CLR as time goes by (in particular, they seem interested in adding better support for dynamic languages). Meanwhile, the Java folks are stuck with an early 90's vision of what a VM can and should do....

Funny thing is... there is a fully capable instruction set in silicon underneath each of these VMs. But the source language has to fit through what in these cases are crippled VM instruction set "keyholes", losing all of the useful higher level information on the way, before getting executed in that silicon.

Can we call a halt to this madness yet?

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Portland, Oregon, United States
I'm usually writing from my favorite location on the planet, the pacific northwest of the u.s. I write for myself only and unless otherwise specified my posts here should not be taken as representing an official position of my employer. Contact me at my gee mail account, username patrickdlogan.