Re: Linux Magazine article

["Glenn A. McAllister" <glenn at somanetworks dot com>]

Hi Anthony.

On 21 Feb 2002, Anthony Green wrote:

> I just picked up the March 2002 Linux Magazine and it has an article on
> gcj.    I just read it (see page 48).
>
> It was written by Glenn McAllister (who is on copy).
>
> Thanks for writing the article Glenn!  It's great to see gcj getting
> some publicity.  Now, on the corrections.... :-)
>
> * The GC library is libgcjgc (just a typo I suppose)

Almost certainly my fault.  I haven't seen the print version of the
article yet, so I'll have to double check to see where the error came in.

>
> * You say that gcj built apps only work with .so files, and can't open
> .jar files to execute bytecode.  This should actually work (on some
> platforms...).

I was going on the documentation available to me and the limited tests I
was able to perform.  Unfortunately, I'm not a gcj expert. :)

>
> * The "going half-native" box says that libgcj can interpret .class
> files on x86 boxes only.  However, it can pull the .class files out of
> jar files, and the interpreter is available on more than just x86.  This
> currently works on x86, IA-64, Alpha and PowerPC.

Please keep in mind that I wrote that article in November of 2001.  There
is a long lead time between writing/submitting an article and when it hits
the stands.  If I missed this information back in November, again my
appologies.

>
> * We probably don't document this well, so I can understand the
> oversight... but... In your example you compile myjarfile.jar into
> libmylibrary.so.  While this certainly works (as long as you link the
> library into your app) there's a better naming scheme for shared
> libraries.  For instance, org.glenn code in myjarfile.jar should be
> compiled to lib-org-glenn.so.  That's what is needed for
> Class.forName("org.glenn.Foo") to work (as long as lib-org-glenn.so is
> in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH).  This is an important trick for jdbc drivers
> and such which are always loaded by name.
>

And I definately didn't see docs for this.  :)  Such an important trick
certainly should be documented more prominently.  While I'm sure this
knowledge is alive and well in your mailing list, when people first pick
gcj they probably want to just check the documentation.

> In any case, these are really trivial nit-picks, and the important thing
> is that gcj is getting some press.  Thanks!!

My pleasure. :-)

Btw, you could submit this as a letter to the editor.  They may print it
as a comment/correction to my article.

Thanks for the feedback, and again I'm sorry for any technical errors,
which are all mine.

Glenn McAllister
SOMA Networks, Inc.