Re: gcj and jikes

[Tom Tromey <tromey at redhat dot com>]

>>>>> "Per" == Per Bothner <per at bothner dot com> writes:

Per> I think we need to look ahead to JDK 1.5, with its semi-announced
Per> support for generics and more.  Iff the Jikes maintainers are
Per> committed to supporting future Java languages changes, at least the
Per> ones we can see coming doing down the pike, then it may be
Per> a good thing to do.  Though it might still be reasonable to wait
Per> until the first JDK 1.5 alpha is out.

That makes sense.  Here's what Eric had to say about jikes and
generics last time we talked about this:

http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/java/2003-02/msg00391.html


I'm bringing this up since I'm dissatisfied with gcj's progress.  We
aren't making great progress fixing bugs -- the gcj .java front end
still has many known problems, and my impression is that most large
packages require a tweak or two to build with gcj.  I really don't see
how something as big as generics is going to be implemented, given our
current apparent manpower.

Basically, I think we're behind the curve on the front end.  Even if
jikes never implements generics, using it as the front end would be a
noticeable improvement for users.  On top of that, jikes is simply a
better base to build on.  I find the code cleaner and easier to
follow.

Not that jikes couldn't use some improvement.  E.g., there are a lot
of down-casts that should be changed to use dynamic_cast<>, for
safety.

Tom