In our own wrappers around configure, we've introduced the concept of a "developer mode". But this thread suggests there are 3 populations of users invoking configure:
1. release engineers 2. hotspot developers 3. java library developers Category 1 doesn't care about edit-compile-debug cycle - they just want to build a reliable high-performance jdk without pitfalls. This is the VAST MAJORITY of users, for whom we should design defaults in configure. Category 2 wants debug info and maybe incremental linking. They might cheat and rebuild only libjvm.so and drop that one file into a previously built jdk as part of their development cycle. Category 3 doesn't care about native debug symbols at all
