2015/05/10

DISCLAIMER: These notes are from the defunct k8 project which precedes SquirrelJME. The notes for SquirrelJME start on 2016/02/26! The k8 project was effectively a Java SE 8 operating system and as such all of the notes are in the context of that scope. That project is no longer my goal as SquirrelJME is the spiritual successor to it.

00:47

I was really hoping to sleep for a bit longer.

01:05

I really do not like the bindings stuff in javax.script since it could permit for some security exploits in the case of some variables and such. Also getMethodSyntax call might not make much sense in Forth. One thing I do not want to do is give the Forth interpreter free reign over the Java system unless it is given such permission.

01:16

My OS will require JEP 102 which is to exist in Java 9. Otherwise, there will not be a way to nicely manage processes and virtual machines. Although dragging it in would violate some things, oh well. I already bring in the javax.isolate API so both will be nice when used. JSR 121.

01:27

Actually I will worry about access to native Java things when the whole engine has been completed so I can better determine where it can fit.

21:37

I believe I will write part of the core debugger backend stuff before I resume writing the Forth interpreter. Although, I could use invokedynamic and such and then have native recompilation of Forth code into Java objects. That would result in much faster Forth code running although there would be the compilation step. The language is rather dynamic however when it comes to words. Also the language is similar to C and assembly in that it can access memory directory and is able to modify it. So even if it were dynamically recompiled, it would have to have a large chunk reserved for dyanmic memory that a program could use for any reason. However security exploits could probably be done easier.

21:44

One thing I would like though is to make it so I can the OS on memory constrained systems. Needing only 4MiB of RAM for example. Although provided there is also ROM or some other storage device, this makes it easier. Perhaps instead of my debugger using Forth, it can instead use a more simpler Java shell which has access to its own virtual machine in a way. Basically it would be Java statements that get parsed and then executed in a linear fashion. Using the debugger would mean that you have wide access to the system anyway. So such a thing would be like typing in Java code then executing it and that is what will happen. However that would be more prone to errors. Using Forth would also make a powerful debugger however. Forth would also remove the need for a domain specific language, which can get messy. So perhaps it would be best to just stick with Forth itself and make my current work in it a bit better. The standard is rather vague in some aspects however.

21:49

So, I should probably instead write the GUI version of the debugger first and the core backends then implement the Forth based frontend for the command line version. The Swing version will not really be needing Forth at all for it to work. Also all of the Forth stuff would be bindings into true code anyway.

22:01

Thinking about it, perhaps having a Forth or Java-interpreter backend would be overkill for the debugger. The debugger is also going to be directly attached to the kernel which means a Forth interpreter would also need to be attached also. That would add to some bloat. Although I would dislike a domain specific language, in the interest of remaining light would be best. Having a Forth interpreter could also make the debugging system a bit unstable if the system is having issues with some things.