Walter did yo realy go Ohhhh?

[Bill Baxter]

Georg Wrede wrote:

>> So I think he's just forgetting (or deliberately ignoring) the fact 
>> that someone still has to write that VM and the operating system it 
>> runs on, and those better run as fast as possible or no one will care 
>> how wonderfully "dynamic" it is.
> 
> Considering that all the languages he talks about still have to be 
> /compiled/ for the VM (JIT or no JIT), I have a hard time seeing the 
> case for VMs being rock-solid and compelling.
> 
> Think about it. If I have a web site where I let viewers run their own 
> code on my server, I could simply provide them with a rigged D compiler. 
> The compiler would (or a preprocessor, it would actually be easier for 
> me) flag no-nos in their source code as errors. No biggie.
> 
> Or I might sandbox the running user binaries.

Or you could just use Java's VM instead of trying to figure out how to 
make all that work.  I think that's a big part of it.  The Java VM works 
and is available today, so for people like Steve it makes sense to use it.

> ---
> 
> And then there's the choice nobody seems to suggest: running a VM that 
> uses the processor's own ASM as the VM language. The (e.g. D) compiler 
> would enforce the exclusion of dangerous idioms.

That's kinda what the "virtual appliance" thing is about isn't it? 
Running an app inside a VMWare instance with some ASM as the VM's native 
tongue.

--bb