>
> "Aaron M. Renn" wrote:
>
> > 3). What is required to build/install/run?
> >
> > GNU Classpath requires that Japhar 0.07 be installed. Information on
> > obtaining Japhar is available from http://www.japhar.org/. A working
> > C compiler is also required. You will need the Sun JDK installed if you
> > elect to recompile the Java classes.
>
> You should mention Jikes if it is verified to build the classes as well.
> After all, with Jikes + Japhar + Classpath, the end user should
> ultimately have a complete open-source Java solution.
FWIW, using jikes to build classes is not enough: you also need a VM
that runs classes built by jikes. While jikes-generated code is most
likely compliant to the VM spec, it is different enough from javac or
pizza generated code to have the potential to uncover bugs in your VM.
Especially if it was developed and debugged for code generated by javac
or pizza.
For example, jikes introduces nops and it also emits slightly different
exception tables, which uncovered problems in Kaffe's jit which had to be
fixed.
>
> Also, what about using Classpath with Kaffe or compiling it with Kaffe?
>
I suggested at some point to make classpath modular in that you could
build single packages only and use them separately. The intention was
that users could use parts of classpath that did not rely on the VM-specific
layer (i.e., that are pure Java+JNI) with other VMs, such as Kaffe.
However, looking at the list of packages in your release announcement, it
appears that what classpath offers so far is about the same as kaffe
(minus awt, plus some security classes). There should be little reason
for you to use classpath at this point. Plus, Kaffe's libraries have been
in active use for a while now, and may be more debugged because of this.
Development is pretty active, and a lot of people who use kaffe for actual
applications are contributing fixes and missing functionality.
Nevertheless, I'd certainly like to see kaffe support in classpath
at some point. I'd also like to try it out with japhar at some time,
but so far every japhar release I downloaded has failed to build for me :-( (*)
Cheers,
- Godmar
