Wave Fronts
Friday July 14, 2006
Immortal Source Code
The ISA of a VM (i.e. it's bytecode set and the semantic definition of all the bytecodes) can change and hypothetically all existing higher level ("source") code can be moved forward to the new ISA/VM combination with a well understood compiler bootstrapping process. So not only does a VM insulate source code collections from necessary hardware and low level ISA evolution, it supports evolution of the higher level ISA of the VM itself. An example of this that has been going on for years is concurrent evolution of the Java virtual machine and maintenance of backward compatibilty, providing "immortal source code." And for where the GPL is involved one gets "immortal open source code." I wonder if Forest (Earl) Gilmore, Don Parce, and Robert (Bob) Nichols shared a vision of this possible future when they launched Business Application Systems in 1978 to create BASPort? (BASPort was a portable operating system: Think Java on top of an extremely simple OS kernel and *everything* but the kernel itself and the virtual machine being in the portable language.)
Posted at 11:28PM Jul 14, 2006 by microwaves in Operating Environments | Comments[1]
This is a personal weblog, I do not speak for my employer.
I used to work for Earl Gilmore(along with my long time friend, Sandy Keegan) when he was Director of Software Development at Data General. She and I were just talking tonite about Bill Foster (whose house in Dover, MA was just
hit by lightening). Of course, this has nothing at all to do with BAS, but I remember when Earl left to form his company in Cary, NC and the great minds that went with him (Parce and Nichols and a few others whose names elude me). I don't know who you are, but did you ever work for DG and/or Digital?
I miss Earl greatly. He was a dear friend and helped me, personally, thru a very rough time in my life and I was truly saddened when he passed away.
Wishing you great success.
Marsha
Posted by Marsha Hall on August 07, 2007 at 02:40 AM EDT #