value types at the jvm level?

[Mark Roos]

I see an interesting discussion here on value types.  I assume that at 
least part of the
intent is to solve the performance hit by using boxed integers.  As such I 
was thinking
about how that would affect my Smalltalk implementation.

A simple case for me is the boxing of longs.  I use longs everywhere I 
need an integer
so both Character and Integer objects use a long to hold values.   My 
encapsulating 
object is a instance of a Java object called RtObject which holds a 
reference to a method lookup
array and the value ( a long ). 

What I wonder is how my GWT would work if I use value types?  My current 
GWT test compares the
lookup array with the assumption that if the lookups are equal (==) then 
the method resolution is as well.
It seems like every GWT first needs to test for value types and if true 
then to use a shared lookup array.
I can see how Java classes could be handled invisibly but how would I use 
them?  I would need a way
to get a class tag of some sort that I could use for my own lookup.  Or 
would I create a Java class for 
each value type I use and use the Java class as the test?  In any case it 
seems like a fast way to check
if its a value type is a minimum.

regards
mark
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