Reconsidering gcjx

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

"Kaveh R. Ghazi" <ghazi@caipclassic.rutgers.edu> writes:

|  > "Kaveh R. Ghazi" <ghazi@caipclassic.rutgers.edu> writes:
|  > 
|  > | However with Tom's proposal, we need an existing java compiler for
|  > | our target.
|  > 
|  > I don't believe the issues at hand here (Java specific case) are as
|  > severe as they sound from your messages.  
| 
| Okay fine, let's quantify it.  I downloaded the Dec 2005
| gcc-testresults archive from:
| ftp://gcc.gnu.org/pub/gcc/mail-archives/gcc-testresults/gcc-testresults-2005-12.bz2
| 
| Then i ran this shell pipeline:
| 
| grep '\--enable-languages=' gcc-testresults-2005-12 | sed 's/.*--enable-languages=//; s/ .*$//' | tr ',' '\n' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr
| 
| and I got:
| 
|    1690 c
|    1659 c++
|    1379 objc
|    1233 java
|     945 fortran
|     451 ada
|     292 treelang
|     229 obj-c++
|     228 f95
|     185 f77
|      14 pascal
|      13 for
|       3
|       2 3Dc
|       1 treela=
|       1 c+
|       1 ;t
|       1 3Dfortran
| 
| (Note: fortran + f95 + f77 = 1358 or about on par with Java.)

Thanks for the data.

| As you can see, Java currently gets less testing than c/c++ but its
| still about 3x the testing that Ada gets.  Part of the reason for
| Ada's low numbers is the extra prerequisite placed on bootstrapping.
| I'd like to avoid having Java fall lower than it already is.

I understand your goal.  However, I do not believe that the reasons
you give to explain the Ada situation carry verbatim to the Java
situation.  From the description I've seen and following the regular
Ada bootstrapping issues, it strikes that the situations are quite
dissimilar, even though they bear some ressemblance points.

Tom has provided a data point that theu used the Eclipse compiler to
build javac.  It is not like we only have one source of widely used
java compiler.  And we may even not need to full blown one.

|  > In 2006, I believe the availability of java front-ends for
|  > bootsstrapping the GNU Java is sufficiently widespread enough to
|  > outweight and overcome the potential problems you're anticipating.
| 
| I don't think it matters how available it is.

that has been one of the fundamental issue with the Ada front-end,
with requirements on specific version.

| Many testers and developers just won't bother.

See, my conclusion then is it must not be the language in which it is
written issue.  
Having the compiler written in C does not automatically drag hundreds of
testers or developers batalions. But it does have the disavantage of
not stressing the front-end as one written in Java would.

Letting the Java front-end more integrated to the Java community tools
have the potential of dragging more interested people (its community
and developers) than the already scare C-only GCC developers.

|  > We desperatly need to get GCC more supported, more integrated into
|  > widely used development tools.  We cannot sustain improvements,
|  > competition by isolating and painting ourselves into corners.
|  > -- Gaby
| 
| I think we agree on that goal and I've said my piece.  If others think
| the benefits of using Java in the Java FE are worthwhile I won't
| oppose it.

FWIW, given the scarce resource we -- and especially the Java folks --
have, we should not put the bar higher than necessary.  The idea 
outlined by Tom sounds sensible to me and worths exploring.  He
provided data points that indicate that the idea is not totally alien
to working.

-- Gaby