# Strongtalk VM now open source **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [September 12, 2006, 3:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strongtalk-vm-now-open-source/68369 "2006-09-12T03:49:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![philthompson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/ed8c4c/32.png) [@philthompson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/philthompson)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2006, 3:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strongtalk-vm-now-open-source/68369/1 "2006-09-12T03:49:35Z")
The Strongtalk is supposedly a very fast VM for Smalltalk. Now it’s been released as open source. Perhaps it would be possible to run Ruby on it? Or perhaps some ideas can be borrowed to make YARV faster? [http://www.strongtalk.org/](http://www.strongtalk.org/) Phil ---
**Author:** ![philthompson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/ed8c4c/32.png) [@philthompson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/philthompson)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2006, 4:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strongtalk-vm-now-open-source/68369/2 "2006-09-12T04:01:38Z")
On 9/11/06, Phil T. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > The Strongtalk is supposedly a very fast VM for Smalltalk. Now it’s > been released as open source. Perhaps it would be possible to run > Ruby on it? Or perhaps some ideas can be borrowed to make YARV > faster? > > [http://www.strongtalk.org/](http://www.strongtalk.org/) Given the provenance (Dave Ungar’s self group) at first glance this looks promising, probably more promising in the long run than a JVM implementation of Ruby. – Rick DeNatale My blog on Ruby [http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/](http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/) ---
**Author:** ![philthompson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/ed8c4c/32.png) [@philthompson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/philthompson)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2006, 4:33am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strongtalk-vm-now-open-source/68369/3 "2006-09-12T04:33:44Z")
On 9/12/06, Rick DeNatale [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Given the provenance (Dave Ungar’s self group) at first glance this > looks promising, probably more promising in the long run than a JVM > implementation of Ruby. Self itself may be a mine of good ideas for making Ruby faster, the language being just as dynamic and many of the same ideas they had for making it faster (the best VM JIT compiler they’ve been able to come up with is about half the speed of the equivalent C, which is not at all bad) may be applicable to Ruby as well. [http://research.sun.com/self/compiler.html](http://research.sun.com/self/compiler.html) ---
**Author:** ![philthompson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/ed8c4c/32.png) [@philthompson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/philthompson)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2006, 5:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strongtalk-vm-now-open-source/68369/4 "2006-09-12T17:33:18Z")
“Rick DeNatale” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) writes: > implementation of Ruby. > … except the JRuby implementation 1) is there, 2) is founded, 3) > runs on a gazillion of platforms. (AFAICS, they don’t even manage to > compile their own Strongtalk source. ;-)) Strongtalk definitely needs a lot of work before it’s useful to a possible Ruby implementation. But, sure, read the papers and see what can be done. ---
**Author:** ![philthompson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/ed8c4c/32.png) [@philthompson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/philthompson)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2006, 5:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strongtalk-vm-now-open-source/68369/5 "2006-09-12T17:49:21Z")
On 12/09/06, Christian N. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > … except the JRuby implementation 1) is there, 2) is founded, 3) > runs on a gazillion of platforms. (AFAICS, they don’t even manage to > compile their own Strongtalk source. ;-)) > > Strongtalk definitely needs a lot of work before it’s useful to a > possible Ruby implementation. > > But, sure, read the papers and see what can be done. It’s also not the first time someone has talked about running Ruby on a Smalltalk VM on this list. Peter Suk’s Alumina VM project seems to be moribund, however. As you say, the big benefit of JRuby is that it’s already here and working. That’s definitely worth something. Paul.