2014-06-19 18:35 GMT+02:00 Esteban A. Maringolo <[email protected]>:
> Hi Clement, > > 2014-06-19 12:52 GMT-03:00 Clément Bera <[email protected]>: > > 2014-06-18 15:39 GMT+02:00 Esteban A. Maringolo <[email protected]>: > > >> Can you share what is the intended use of the android vm that you're > >> building? > > > - Deploying application on Android > > - Proving to big customers Pharo can run on ARM processor on the > contrary to > > several other smalltalks > > What kind of applications? Is there an business interest of running on > ARM processors? Is there a sale advantage of having this? I don't want > to sound too inquisitive nor pedantic, those are real questions. > Yes there is a business interest of running on ARM processors. Some of the big companies use smalltalk on their own hardware for very specific tasks, and they are now constraint to use x86 processor due to smalltalk. In addition for some big projects management checks how the environment is compatible to other platforms, and they can check "running on ARM, Android, iOS, ..." > > As stated in previous mails, running on the platform is a technical > challenge per se (I couldn't make it if I wanted), but it's just a > very small part of "deploying to Android". And I'm not talking about > app stores. > I agree. I want to run on ARM, not necessarily and Android. > > Even though Android (AOSP) is Linux based, the memory/battery > constraints makes that apps or services lifecycle completely > different to regular unix processes. And I don't see how this fits > into the whole android environment. Last time I tried (+1yr) it the VM > was a permanent process, without access to device sensors, etc.[*] > Yeah. This should be fixed. This is a VM bug to me. There are other VMs out there that consume less battery by not using the CPU at all when all its processes are in idle. I don't have time now but one day of no one has done it, I'll try to fix it. > > I have a genuine interest in this topic, because my company depends > both on Pharo and Android (native) software. > > But how I see this, the advantage of Pharo running on Android for > devices other than phones/tablets, more kind of "internet of things" > devices. The advantage is also that the image is an asset of the vm, > so you can update your app without having to reinstall it through the > platform app management. > There is also this direction. Running on ARM is very important to be cross platform. That includes connected objects, the raspberry pie, and many other devices. > > Please don't let this stop you guys from doing this VM even for the > fun/sake of doing it. > But as you are making this public, I feel allowed to ask questions and > add comments. You can simply ignore them. :) > > Regards, > > Esteban A. Maringolo > > [*] Several years ago I took a private course of "mobile squeak", and > even compiled a modified squeak VM for WinCE, running MVC based UIs. > Back then Squeak UI was way better than WinCE's, even for "business > apps". Now I think mobile expectations changed. > >
