Re: Ahead of time compiler solutions

[Philippe Laporte <plaporte at wgate dot com>]

> Philippe> I'm just very curious here, what's so special about Kaffe
> Philippe> that it can interface with GCJ, but the SUN JVM can't?
>
> I thought they changed kaffe to let it interoperate.
> I don't know, though, since I never looked into it.
> In any case, the special thing is access to the source.
If someone is a SUN source licensee, he can check out gcj code, or can't he?
I hate the legal side of this business :-) (but then, it makes for 
unnecessarily duplicated projects, which is always fun :-)

> Philippe> What is the one JIT project that is closest to meeting the
> Philippe> integration requirements, and what's still missing?
>
> ORP is closest.  I think it is license-compatible, though I don't
> remember the last time I looked.
>
> Missing bits:
>
> * Change libgcj to allow pluggable jit/interpreter.
>  This is pretty easy, probably a couple days.
>  Nobody has done it yet since there's no demand.
>
> * Write glue code to let ORP talk to libgcj.
>  ORP has some interfaces that make this not too bad.
>  I started it; I have about 800 LOC and probably another 2000 to go
>  At my current rate it will take about 15 years to finish :-)
>
> * Figure out how to get ORP exceptions and libgcj exceptions to work
>  together.  No clue how long this will take.
>
> ORP only works on ia32 and ia64 :-(
>
> I can send my integration code to anybody who wants it.  Though
> honestly it may be easier to start from scratch.
>
> Tom
>  
Bring on the Kaffe JIT then. It has tons of ports, and a newest sexy one 
by a Stanford PhD, though I think it's for MIPS only as of now.
Agreed, given it wasn't at all a compiler guy who wrote it, you'll 
probably say gcj should try to find a better JIT even if it's less 
ported, so as to start out the best possible.


Regards,
--
Philippe Laporte

Software Engineer

WorldGate 
3190 Tremont Avenue
Trevose PA 19053
Tel: 215-354-5389
Email: plaporte@wgate.com