Re: RFC: micro-libgcj merge proposal

[Joel Dice <dicej at mailsnare dot net>]

On Fri, 13 Jan 2006, Tom Tromey wrote:
> I do have some comments about the other part, which would affect the
> eventual merge.
>
> Joel>      --[enable|disable]-micro-libgcj
> Joel>      --[enable|disable]-micro-synchronization
>
> Joel> * Add preprocessor directives to various native source files (*.cc) under
> Joel>    the libjava directory of the following forms:
>
> Maintainability is the big issue here.
>
> For J2SE we know when a given change is ok.  We have the spec (such as
> it is :-), test cases, applications, JAPI, etc, to guide us.  But for
> micro-libgcj, what is the guide?  Possible problem cases are: we
> refactor native code, how do we know where to move #ifdefs?  We add
> methods, do they go in micro-libgcj?  (E.g., new methods get added to
> String from time to time.  Which go in?)
>
> Now, strictly speaking it isn't a problem if we have a relatively
> undefined subset of the libraries, provided that the maintenance of it
> is also ad hoc -- we have that situation with the xlib peers, where
> the "full" AWT is free to break them from time to time, and the
> maintainer (and, I think, sole user) of them fixes them up as he
> needs.

I would expect micro-libgcj to be handled like the xlib peers - the 
micro-libgcj maintainer(s) would have the sole responsibility of fixing 
breakage introduced by those maintaining the "standard" build(s).  As far 
as I'm concerned, a major code refactoring could eliminate micro-libgcj 
code and directives completely if it made things easier.  It would be a 
pleasure to adapt micro-libgcj to a properly refactored codebase, even 
if from scratch.

However, this does touch on a concern I have about breaking 
--enable-micro-libgcj into a number of finer-grained options.  The more 
such options we have, the more confusing things will be for the 
maintainers.  We have to accept that we can't make things so fine-grained 
as to satisfy every user without creating an unmaintainable mess, or a 
library that only builds when configured with one of a few magic 
combinations of options.

 - Joel