Smalltalk VS koreader

> * I'm assuming the "by the Bluebook" implementation they're referring to is this: *

Or this: https://github.com/rochus-keller/Smalltalk/

> message passing and late binding combined. "Duck typing" is seriously diminishing it

Actually even ST-72 made synchronous calls, but at least with a token stream interpreted by the receiving object (thus at least a bit of "message passing"). In ST-76 and later versions "message passing" is just nomenclature used by the ST folks for something that is just ordinary method dispatch and call (if you have doubts, you can analyze the innards of the ST-80 VM yourself e.g. with these tools: https://github.com/rochus-keller/Smalltalk ). The major difference is the dispatch based on signature hash (similar to e.g. Java interface method calls) instead of static positions, which enables late binding (at the expense of performance); and since everything including ordinary integers derive from Object, all values and objects are subject to dynamic method dispatch; it's no coincidence that Smalltalk was the first language to allow real duck typing. The unification of scalar values and references, dynamic typing, and likewise the minimal syntax where control structures are implemented by means of runtime constructs were already known from Lisp; also closures (i.e. ST blocks) were already known before they were added to ST.

Here is one even in Lua: https://github.com/rochus-keller/Smalltalk/

> 10kSLOC for the entire universe

It is the nature of idealists that they see the world idealized. Smalltalk-80 itself has nearly 30 kSLOC; it's just more difficult to count, but I wrote tools which can do it (https://github.com/rochus-keller/Smalltalk/).

Why should "perform" be a message? It's just a method of the Object class, which is the superclass of Integer. You can use my St80ClassBrowser and St80ImageViewer (see https://github.com/rochus-keller/Smalltalk/) to check the ST-80 source code and image if you want; there is a list of all selectors and the classes which implement them. Going up the class hierarchy when doing virtual method dispatch is a fundamental concept of all object-oriented implementations; in contrast to e.g. C++ this can be done dynamically at runtime in Smalltalk or Java (which is also called late binding). In contrast to Smalltalk in Java the class loader verifies that a method for the referenced signature actually exists; in Smalltalk you can try to dispatch any signature which can result in a call to the doesNotUnderstand method of the Object class.

> a large lua game code base, over 4000 files, 1.5 million lines of code

Interesting; how do you manage to keep consistency? Do you have special tools to e.g. detect inadvertent global variables? I once wrote a Smalltalk VM in Lua (https://github.com/rochus-keller/Smalltalk/blob/master/Inter...) which is a much smaller code base but even with this size I quickly would have lost track of e.g. scopes and names without tools I had to write myself (https://github.com/rochus-keller/LJTools).

It is true, that there is uncollected garbage in the original Xerox ST80 image. I've built some tools to analyze the image and also a VM which can be interrupted at any time to analyze the current state of the image (see https://github.com/rochus-keller/Smalltalk).

There are two zombie processes (OID 6662 and 19ba). There are also a couple of BlockContext and MethodContext which have a nil sender and a reference to an unknown method, but which are still referenced from somewhere (i.e. the collection is prevented even if it is not implemented by reference counting. E.g. OID 79a2 of class BinaryChoice. I have a full list if anybody is interested.

Integers are actually directly stored, i.e. without boxing/indirection by a pointer. The Smalltalk object memory doesn't have pointers in the C sense, but rather indices into the object table. If you're interested I've implemented a couple of tools to study the original Smalltalk-80 VM, see https://github.com/rochus-keller/Smalltalk/.

- https://github.com/rochus-keller/Smalltalk/ Parser, code model, interpreter and navigable browser for the original Xerox Smalltalk-80 v2 sources and virtual image file

- https://github.com/rochus-keller/Som/ Parser, code model, navigable browser and VM for the SOM Smalltalk dialect

- https://github.com/rochus-keller/Simula A Simula 67 parser written in C++ and Qt

> do you regret those endeavours?

No, not in any way; the projects were very entertaining and gave me interesting insights.

Kobos[1] and Pocketbooks[2] are a lot more open than Kindles. AFAIK you can transfer .epub files into both devices and these epubs are perfectly readable via the stock OS. If for some reason you find the stock proprietary OS lacking, you can install an open source one like KOreader [3] or Plato[4]

Of course you want a good way of organizing epubs pdfs mobi, and like has already been mentioned Calibre[5] is a great option.

[1]https://www.kobo.com/

[2]https://pocketbookstore.com/en-ca

[3]https://github.com/koreader/koreader

[4]https://github.com/baskerville/plato

[5]https://calibre-ebook.com/

[2]: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Dictionary-support...

Oh man I absolutely love the work that you guys do. I'm actually in the process of learning Ebook production using the 'Step by Step' guide on your website. I'm essentially learning it all from scratch as I have little to no programming/SWE experience (I learned a bit of Lua because of KOReader[1]) but the technical side of ebook production has always fascinated me enough to keep learning.

[1] https://github.com/koreader/koreader

Ha! I feel similarly, if not as eloquently.

Installed https://github.com/koreader/koreader on mine + enabled SSH server.

I read that KOreader is unstable on the Libra 2[0], so I haven’t installed it yet even though I would like to. What has been your experience running it?

[0] https://github.com/koreader/koreader/issues/8414

You can easily modify it (like adding KOReader).

I'm using Kobo Clara 2E (6" screen size), and it is unpleasant to read PDF and CBZ files (comic/manga) since Kobo only provides zoom and orientation mode. I installed KOReader on my Kobo. It has more setup to display those files way better. The views of PDF in KOReader and Comic in Koreader. I read Epub files in Koreader to maintain its original format.

I installed KOReader on my Kobo Clara 2E. KOReader is a document viewer to read PDFs and manga/comics. KOReader has more setup to display fixed-layout format in a way that is better than the native Kobo display (Kobo stock).

It doesn't try to solve the same use cases that Calibre does, but I built an open source (EPUB only) manager / reader / statistics tracker called AnthoLume [0]. It mostly stemmed from me reading in KOReader [1] on my Kindle, and not having the ability to sync the progress to my iPhone / iPad.

It's got metadata matching, support for multiple users, and statistics tracking which allows me to have a "Leaderboard" that shows how fast you read (words per minute). Fun competition between my wife and I (that I'm 100% losing). It's a Progressive Web App and utilizes a Service Worker to support 100% offline reading as well.

There's a demo server [2] (creds are "demo" for both user & pass).

[0] https://gitea.va.reichard.io/evan/AnthoLume

[1] http://koreader.rocks/

[2] https://antholume-demo.cloud.reichard.io/