Newbie Questions

[Tom Tromey]

>>>>> "Clemens" == Clemens Eisserer <linuxhippy@freemail.de> writes:

Clemens> I'm still a very newbie at gjc so plaese dont be angry about
Clemens> my stupid questions ;-)....

Don't worry.  But it is called "gcj".

Clemens> I heard it is nearly compatible with Java-1.1.8 (without
Clemens> Gui-Stuff...), but can I really make native apps with it,
Clemens> like any C++ app.  Is there nothing like a runtime,
Clemens> everything nativly? That would be sooo cool....

No, you still need a runtime.  The runtime contains the garbage
collector, various low-level bits, the class library, and other
things.  On many platforms it even includes a bytecode interpreter.

The difference is that our runtime is a shared library.

Clemens> Is it possible to link static with libgjc , so that the user
Clemens> dont need to install it.(Of cource there will be choice...)

Yes, though static linking isn't as well tested as dynamic linking.
You might have to do strange things to make some code work, for
instance if your code is using reflection.

Clemens> I heard that there are already some AWT-Classes. Are they
Clemens> ready to use and how does they look on linux? (I heard
Clemens> something like GTK)...

AWT exists but is not yet ready to use.  Some parts are missing.  The
native side has not been written.

Actually, to be precise, a lot of the native code does exist in
Classpath.  It uses JNI (not CNI) and has not been merged into libgcj
yet.  The current native peers use Gtk.  They are still quite buggy
and incomplete.

Clemens> Will all java-classes that are included in my file
Clemens> (e.g. java.io.*) compiled nativly?

Yes.

Clemens> Is gjc a "dead" or lacy project, or is there much traffic on it?

Read the mailing list archives or the web page.  There is a lot of
traffic.  It is probably the most active free software java project by
an order of magnitude.

Tom