Re: Some questions

reno@smart.net
Sun, 28 Jul 1996 13:04:49 +0000

Nate,

Thanks for clearing some of this up!

- ----- forwarded letter -------------------------------------------------------
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Date: Sun, 28 Jul 96 12:48:10 -0400
> From: GWRepNate@aol.com
> To: geos-dev@lifelike.com
> Subject: Re: Some questions

>
> Reno wrote:
> <<<<<
> Now we see how much *I* understand.
> ...
> I'm told its nearest relative is Objective C, but I can't verify that. It has
> nothing that resembles an automatic constructor or destructor.
> >>>>>
>
> Not so. MSG_META_INITIALIZE, and MSG_META_DETACH are the constructor and
> destructor of every GEOS object.

A useful bit of information, that.

>
> <<<<<
> MemAlloc is a Bad Thing - it creates a fixes block of memory, rather than
> virtual
> memory. Very antisocial, and a good way to run out of memory. Avoid.
> >>>>>
>
> Actually no. MemAlloc creates one of several blocks, depending on what you
> want. The block can be fixed, swappable, discardable, sharable, etc. It
> doesn't have to stay in memory, as the memory manager may very well swap it
> to the swap file. VMAlloc will create blocks that are stored in a VM file,
> making the memory manager even happier.

Sorry about that one - I was thinking of Malloc. I used that for a while in RenoComm.
I'm not now.

> Well, all messages to a particular class are stored in method tables. So if I
> subclass MetaClass, my subclass will have it's own method table with my
> additional messages in it. If GEOS can't find a message handler it's looking
> for, the message being sent will simply disappear.

Subtle distinction from what I thought.

> No tutorials that I know of. I posted the source code to the last beta of
> RenoComm
> (my project) to comp.binaries.geos, and there's a copy at
> http://www.cs.tu-berlin.de/~pilz

Update: it was recently put on ftp at

ftp://ftp.datanetworks.ch/pub/GOCE/JERRY_RENO_USA

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