Editing Croquet Project (section)

=== Virtual machines ===
Croquet's [[virtual machine]] (VM) runs bit identically on multiple platforms, and supports multiple abilities that could only be provided by a true [[name binding|late bound]], message sending language.

Croquet's relationship to [[Squeak]] gives Croquet the property of a purely [[Object-oriented programming|object-oriented]] system allowing for significant flexibility in the design and the nature of the protocols and architectures that have been developed for the system.

Because of this, Croquet has the ability to keep running while code is modified and tested, while changes are made, an essential part of the Croquet collaborative development ability.  Users can change the code running the environment while the environment runs.

[[File:Edit Source Code.jpeg|thumb|300px|Croquet allows users to edit the source code of the 3D world from within the world, and immediately see the result, while the world is still running. The running program does not need to be ended, and there is no compile-link-run-debug development loop. Any part of the program may be edited, down to the VM and [[OpenGL]] calls.]]