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From: barad@brand.usc.edu (Herb Barad)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Severe Limitation of Smalltalk for Big Projects
Message-ID: <3005@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: Thu, 25-Jun-87 11:06:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: oberon.3005
Posted: Thu Jun 25 11:06:47 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Jun-87 01:34:44 EDT
Sender: nobody@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: barad@brand.usc.edu (Herb Barad)
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Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
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I am currently using PS (on a Sun 3) to develop a prototype of a
parallel architecture.  There is a severe limitation that everyone
should be aware of that could limit the usefulness of Smalltalk in
large projects.

The size of the object table can grow.  However, the total size of the
executable image cannot exceed 16 Bytes.  This doesn't matter that you
have a 68020 and can address MUCH further than that.  The 16 Mbyte
limit is hardcoded into their design.  There are plans to remove this
design flaw from PS, but don't expect that for about a year.

If you think 16 Megs is a lot, just try working on a big project and
see how quickly you approach the ceiling.

Herb Barad	[USC - Signal and Image Processing Institute]

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