The Design and Evaluation of a High Performance Smalltalk System

Abstract

The Smalltalk-80 sub TM system makes it possible to write programs quickly by providing object-oriented programming, incremental complication, run- time type checking, use-extensible data types and control structures, and an interactive graphical interface. However, the potential savings in programming effort have been curtailed by poor performance in widely available computers or high processor cost. Smalltalk-80 systems pose tough challenges for implementors: dynamic data typing, a high-level instruction set, frequent and expensive procedure calls, and object-oriented storage management. The dissertation documents two results that run counter to conventional wisdom: that a reduced instruction set computer can offer excellent performance of a system with dynamic data typing such as Smalltalk-80, and that automatic storage reclamation need not be time-consuming.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 1986
Accession Number
ADA173022

Entities

People

  • David M. Ungar

Organizations

  • University of California, Berkeley

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Architecture
  • Computer Program Documentation
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Computer Science
  • Computers
  • Debugging
  • High Level Languages
  • Instruction Set Architecture
  • Object Code
  • Object Oriented Programming
  • Operating Systems
  • Personal Computers
  • Programming Languages
  • Software Design
  • Software Development

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

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