> Mmm, that's something I've been idly speculating about. I don't know
> if this holds up to the scrutiny of experts, but has anybody ever
> considered the possibility of splitting up a Smalltalk system at the
> image level? It is, a Smalltalk system should be comprised of
> multiple images, not just one.
Take a look at GemStone/S. Been around since 1985 IIRC. A
"distributed-multi-image-system" or a
"single-transactional-image-multiple-VMs-system" depending on how you
like to view it.
Really, really cool system. I think it is freely downloadable for
non-commercial use.
Also many efforts in the Squeak community have similar characteristica
and are in some ways inspired by GemStone - like say KATS from Stephen
Pair (an object transactional engine) or Magma from Chris Muller (a
simplified GemStone clone).