05. Virtual Machine Core

Virtual Machine Core

The VM is the heart of the system, interpreting Smalltalk bytecodes and managing execution:

Key Components:

• Bytecode Interpreter: Executes compiled Smalltalk methods with highly optimized instruction set.
• Process Management: Time-sliced cooperative multitasking for Smalltalk processes.
• Method Cache: Performance optimization for method lookup.
• Context Management: Handles method activation records and returns.
• Primitives: Native C implementations of performance-critical operations.