Re: Documenting what changed since 4.0 (gcj core libraries)

[Gerald Pfeifer <gerald at pfeifer dot com>]

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006, Mark Wielaard wrote:
> Here is a patch against the changes.html file:

Wow, this is most cool.

> OK to commit?

We usually mark up keywords/function names as 
<code>FileChannel.map</code>, but I'd not make it a must for this
patch if you don't want to make this change.

Please do make this change for configure options such as --enable-qt-peer 
and pathnames such as libjava/classpath/examples/README, though.

Below you'll find some detailed comments.  If you could consider these
before committing your patch, I'd appreciate that; the patch per se
certainly is fine.  Thanks!

Index: htdocs/gcc-4.1/changes.html
===================================================================
+<h3>Java (GCJ)</h3>
+  <ul>
+    <li>Core library (libgcj) updates based on GNU Classpath 0.15 - 0.19+

What does 0.19+ refer to?  0.19.1, 0.20, or something else?

+	    <li>awt.datatransfer updated to 1.5 with supports for

"support"

+	    FlavorEvents.  The gtk+ awt peers now allow copy/paste of
+	    text, images, uris/files and serialized objects with other

"URIs"

+	    <li>The GUI demo (gnu.classpath.examples.swing.Demo) has
+	    been extended to highlight various features in our
+	    free-swing implementation. And includes a look and feel
+	    switcher (Metal default, Ocean or GNU).</li>

"And it includes"? Or "Plus it includes"?

+	    <li>The javax.swing.plaf.multi.* package is now
+	    implemented.</li>

Is this one package, or several packages?

+	    <li>Lots of icons and look and feel improvements for Free
+	    Swing basic and metal themes were added.  Try running the
+	    GNU Classpath Swing Demo in examples
+	    (gnu.classpath.examples.swing.Demo) with:
+	    -Dswing.defaultlaf=javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicLookAndFeel
+	    -Dswing.defaultlaf=javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLookAndFeel</li>

<code>-Dswing...</code>

+	    <li>revalidate and repaint fixes which make Free Swing
+	    much more responsive.</li>

"Revalidate"?

+	<li>Free RMI and Corba
+	  <ul>
+	    <li>The Andrew Watson, Vice President and Technical
+	    Director of the Object Management Group, has officially
+	    assigned us 20 bit Vendor Minor Code Id: 0x47430 ("GC")
+	    that will mark remote Classpath - specific system
+	    exceptions.

Just "Andrew Watson", without "The"?
"Classpath-specific" (no blanks)

+	    <li>Classpath now includes the first working draft to
+	    support the RMI over IIOP protocol. The current
+	    implementation is capable for remote invocations,

"capable of", I believe.

+	    transferring various Serializables and Externalizables via
+	    RMI-IIOP protocol.  It can flatten graphs and, at least
+	    for the simple cases, is interoperable with Sun's jdk
+	    1.5.</li>

"JDK"?

+	    <li>The Portable Object Adapter should now support the
+	    output of the recent IDL to java compilers. These

"Java"?

+	    compilers now generate servants and not CORBA objects as
+	    before, making the output depended on the existing POA
+	    implementation.

"depend" or "dependant", I believe.

+	    <li>The CORBA implementation is now a working prototype
+	    that should support features up till 1.3 inclusive.  We

"up to 1.3"

+	    would invite groups writing CORBA dependent applications
+	    to try Classpath implementation, reporting any possible
+	    bugs.

"We invite groups"

+	    (feature of CORBA 2.3) between these two platforms.  The
+	    remote exceptions are transferred and handled correctly.

Just "Remove exceptions"?

+	    sources are parsed as required.  The transient (for
+	    current session) and permanent (till jre restart)
+	    redirections work.

"JRE"

+	    <li>Make zip and jar UTF-8 "clean".</li>

Why's "clean" in quotes here?  Might this be something worth explaining?
You made _me_ curious at least. ;-)

+	    <li>QT4 AWT peers, enable by giving configure
+	    --enable-qt-peer.

This is one of the configure options I recommend to annoate as
<code>--enable-qt-peer</code>

I'm impressed.  Really!

Gerald

PS: I'll look into the second patch ASAP...