Re: how to help? help me!

[Tom Tromey <tromey at redhat dot com>]

>>>>> "Rivas" == R A Rivas Diaz <rivasdiaz@yahoo.com> writes:

Rivas> - I have enought experience in java to colavorate with the development
Rivas> of libjava or other related project
Rivas> - I WANT TO HELP!

Great!

Rivas> - Understanding of all the tools required to develop and use gnu or
Rivas> other free tools/projects is a complicated and time consuming task.
Rivas> (make, configure, M4, cvs, etc, etc, etc....)

There are many tasks where you need just a basic familiarity with
configure (i.e., how to run it -- not how to write it) and of course
Java.

Rivas> So my suggestion is that the project should maintain a list of
Rivas> isolated tasks that someone like me can take and solve in a
Rivas> weekend, or 4-5 days; and give the solution to the project.

That's a good idea.

Rivas> I think that GCJ should have also a page to guide begginners
Rivas> undertand all things relative to GCC, Classpath, and simple
Rivas> steps on what to do to help the project.

Also a good idea.


I can't write up anything real for you tonight -- I'm leaving for
vacation in a few hours.  So it will have to wait a while.

In the meantime, you could look at the Classpath/JDK comparison page:

    http://rainbow.netreach.net/~sballard/japi/

If you look at the classpath-vs-JDK 1.4 page, you will see that there
are many problems.  Sometimes writing a missing class or package is
too much work (though there are cases where a missing class is a
non-trivial but relatively independent project, for instance
GridBagLayout), but some of the missing or incorrect methods should be
pretty easy to fix.

For those out there more interested in compiler work, the Jacks test
suite is a fertile and apparently never-ending source of gcj bugs.
Some of these are relatively independent (and some turn quickly into a
terrifying morass... :-).

If you prefer low-level debugging, you could try to make Eclipse start
up with the GC enabled; all the patches required to run Eclipse are
now in cvs (though you must still disable the verifier by hand --
speaking of which, another nice project).

Tom