> On 14 Dec 2015, at 12:07, Dimitris Chloupis <kilon.al...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 30% - 100% wow thats quite a speed boost, well done guys!
> And 2GB images are more than welcomed , especially for me that I have to deal 
> with 3d data. 
> 
> Does that ThreadedFFIPlugin means we can now use C libraries that use 
> threading ? 

not yet… but that is the path :)

> 
> On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 1:01 PM Guillermo Polito <guillermopol...@gmail.com 
> <mailto:guillermopol...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> Thanks!
> 
> > On 14 dic 2015, at 11:32 a.m., Esteban Lorenzano <esteba...@gmail.com 
> > <mailto:esteba...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> On 14 Dec 2015, at 11:24, Esteban Lorenzano <esteba...@gmail.com 
> >> <mailto:esteba...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >> We will start migration to Spur today.
> >> To complete it, we will require some time, specially to adapt the CI and 
> >> check everything is ok.
> >>
> >> Spur will allow us to do a big step forward in Pharo development, in the 
> >> concrete you will see it immediately for this:
> >> - We have noticed a speed increment of 100% in tiny benchmarks (and 
> >> according to Eliot, it will be at least 35% in general on the system).
> >> - No more GC stops (noticeable when running large systems)
> >> - We will be able to scale our systems up to 2G memory consumption without 
> >> loosing performance.
> >>
> >> But, this will have some drawbacks in the first times:
> >>
> >> 1) VM will not be compatible between versions anymore: Pharo 5.0 will have 
> >> a Pharo Spur VM associated (and they are not compatible).
> >>      - There WILL NOT be a "non-spur" version of Pharo 5.0. Once completed 
> >> the transitions, this will be the only one.
> >>
> >> 2) NativeBoost-FFI implementation has been replaced with a new 
> >> implementation who relies in ThreadedFFIPlugin and IA32Plugin. While we 
> >> worked a lot to do this transition as painless as possible and we achieve 
> >> a good level of backward compatibility (most uses of #nbCall: should work 
> >> out of the box), there are some problems we cannot solve:
> >>      - there are some stuff not possible to compatibilise, notably:
> >>              - Structures now need to inherit from FFIExternalStructure
> >>              - Arrays now are now shadowed
> >>      - in general is a bit slower (impossible to compete with ASM) but in 
> >> general is not perceptible.
> >>      - THERE WILL BE BUGS AND NON-IMPLEMENTED FEATURES: Current 
> >> implementation is validated with Athens and even Roassal was working, but 
> >> of course that does not covers all cases.
> >> 2.1) ASMJIT will be removed from system and put in a separated packages.
> >> NOTE: There will be a blog post explaining FFI-NB architecture during the 
> >> week.
> >>
> >> 3) There are more or less 70 new failing tests, some of them important 
> >> than we need to fix as soon as possible. Please, please, please, help us 
> >> with them :)
> >>
> >> 4) In general we foresee the system will became unstable some weeks, 
> >> before it gets back to normal. Please be patient.
> >>
> >> 5) You will need to adapt your Pharo 5.0 related apps and CI processes (to 
> >> take care about new VM). Some programs will stop work at all (for example, 
> >> I think Pharo-launcher will need to be adapted).
> >>
> >
> > ah, I forget it!
> >
> > 6) Some changes to the VM accumulated during the time of transition (some 
> > months now). So, some changes introduced there will not be present in new 
> > VM. I will merge this changes in the next weeks.
> >
> > cheers!
> > Esteban
> 
> 

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