gcj and jikes

[Per Bothner]

Joerg Brunsmann wrote:
> Your reservation depends on whether or not generics (whose jsr is still not 
> finished) will be part of jdk 1.5.

Well, it seems fairly likely.  This JavaOne talk by Gilad Bracha:
http://servlet.java.sun.com/javaone/sf2003/conf/sessions/display-3063.en.jsp
says they are "slated for ... JDK 1.5".

So, yes they could say: "sorry but it was too complicated", but I don't
see it as very likely.

> I don't follow this argumentation. Switching 
> to the jikes front end is not a question of feature quality, it's a question of 
> code quality. Better code quality means easier understanding and maintainance. 
> Easier understanding means more potential developers. More developers and better 
> code quality means that it's easier to add generics support.

That does not follow.  Code quality may be high, but it does not follow
that code written to do one task well will have a good structure for
doing soem other task well.  And it also doesn't follow that someone
actually *will* do the task.

> See, you try to stop open source innovation because 
> of potential stupid marketing announcements of a company famous for its 
> closed source practices. 

If we're doing Java, we don't have much choice.

Still, if someone really wants to do the work of using Jikes, by all
means do so.  However, my feeling is that this is not a good time
for such a project.
-- 
	--Per Bothner
per@bothner.com   http://per.bothner.com/