Re: Up-to-date News on GCJ

[Tom Tromey <tromey at redhat dot com>]

>>>>> "Ranjit" == Ranjit Mathew <rmathew@gmail.com> writes:

>> I guess if we had an RSS feed for gcj news and another for classpath
>> news, interested folks could subscribe to both, or we could subscribe
>> the gcj news page to the classpath feed.

Ranjit> Good idea. I like whatever it is that you use for your own
Ranjit> blog - perhaps we can install something like that for propagating
Ranjit> GCJ/GCC/Classpath news?

I'll ask around.  I'm using blosxom... it is ok but perhaps there's
something a bit more user-friendly for gcc.gnu.org.

Ranjit> In a similar vein, can you please look at the main content of
Ranjit> the page and suggest changes? For example, now that GNU Classpath
Ranjit> is completely merged into GCJ, the status pages for the libgcj-
Ranjit> Classpath merge and the GUI branch merge are not needed. I also
Ranjit> do not know if the comments about GNU Crypto and Jessie are still
Ranjit> valid. Lastly, rhug itself proclaims that it does not need to
Ranjit> exist any more now that the BC-ABI is fully functional.

Yes, all of those things should be changed.

There are actually quite a number of changes we could make.  Here's
some off the top of my head:

* The gcj main page is nice web design from 1998... look at mono's web
  pages to get an idea of what it should look like in 2006.  In
  particular, we could have more useful information in less space, so
  that visitors can get a decent overview without having to scroll.

* Any content on the gcj page which is not fairly static over time
  has rotted -- the FAQ, the "done with gcj" page (Gerald's nemesis
  :-), the status page, etc.  These should be deleted and moved to
  the wiki, where we at least have some chance of getting folks to
  update them.

* The "main" text should say what our goals are and a bit about what
  gcj can do.  Mentioning things like missing AWT support is both
  anti-PR and a waste of time and effort -- these days this stuff is
  changing all the time.

* It should be simpler to navigate to useful things... how to get
  involved, reading the documentation, etc.

* We should have javadoc for libgcj online, by release.

* We should have a separate "developer's home" that lists things
  useful to gcj developers... typical bugzilla queries, links to the
  auto-builder, whatever else is useful.

Tom