SV: SV: Adding another configuration feature to libjava forarm-elfmetal configurations

[Øyvind Harboe]

>> Do you think it is worth the effort to try to create patch for a handful more
>> of disable/enable-java-foo (like disable/enable-java-awt) configuration
>> options(i.e. does it stand any chance of being accepted)?
>
>I don't know.  To be honest, I believe you will have a hard time finding
>nice chunks to toggle like that.  For instance, I suspect that your
>image already doesn't include any of the AWT or SWING code.

I haven't exhausted the configuration capabilities of libjava yet, e.g. I 
haven't gotten around to try disable-java-awt yet.

This is well under way though. 

>One reason the library is so big is because the core classes are so
>"connected".  ie. ClassLoader requires networking requires
>internationalization etc (or something like that).
>This paper...
>
> http://irb.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/bs/papers/dipes2000/dipes-kluwer.pdf
>...describes some of the work they did to get a useful system out of
>300k text and 100k data.

Will read with interest.

>> Perhaps I'm going about this in the wrong way and there is some easier way to
>> configure a trimmed down libgcj.
>
>I think that maintaining one or more j2me configurations of the runtime
>would be useful and interesting.  It's more than I can do on my own, and
>I don't think there's been sufficient interest from others to help yet.

OK. 

The downside to coming up with my very own libgcj cocktail is that 
I would constantly have to merge over changes from libgcj.

Then on the other hand, if I'm trying to make a "pico java", then it 
shouldn't have stuff added to it constantly, and hence merging is less 
important.

I'm not interested in this because I think there are big bucks
to be made or saved, but I find the idea of having a single programming
language across a wider range of deployment scenarios pleasing.

Java would be useful even without any libgcj at all. Basically a neat, familiar 
language with garbage collection and exception handling, upwards compatible 
with my normal development environment. Embedded bookkeeping done in Java running
out of flash, with calls to C/C++ for performance/hardware oriented stuff.


Øyvind Harboe