Re: Please keep Classpath in a working state (Was: cvs commits andjava.util.regex)

[Eric Blake]

Mark Wielaard wrote:
> 
> 
> Please no. Classpath is now at a point that it can be compiled with
> only free tools. Please keep it that way. I think the String changes
> should not have been checked in.

No String changes that depend on java.util.regex were checked in.  My
conversation started because I added the dependency in my local tree,
and EXPECTED a failure, knowing that java.util.regex was non-existant,
just to see what I would have to add.  But I am not planning on
committing anything which will break the build.

> 
> For classes that are really standalone and that you want to have in
> the CVS repository you can add them to the lib/standard.omit file
> so they don't interfere with the build (although I would like to keep
> that file as small as possible, ideally it would be empty).
> 
> If that is really not a option then you should either work on a branch
> or check in stub classes.

If I check in anything, I will either leave the implementation in
String.java as
 throw new InternalError("unimplemented");
or else add stub classes in java.util.regex which do the same. Actually,
now that I think about it, putting the error in a stub class is better,
because then we won't have to go back and change String.

> 
> Please, please, please, always keep the tree compiling and working with
> the VM-interface we currently have. Sometimes you have to break it to
> make progress, but in that case please warn everybody by posting your
> patch to the mailinglist first before you check in and explain what
> people should do to keep on working with their current setup.

I agree with this (and if I've been guilty of breaking things in the
past, I'm sorry).

> 
> Maybe we could define a minimum setup that is "easy" for everybody to
> get working? I would propose using jikes (1.15+)

1.15b, actually, available from Jikes CVS - the jikes 1.15 release has
problems.

> and orp (1.0.9+) as the
> minimum setup that always needs to work for compiling/running Hello
> World with Classpath. That way someone can always fall back to
> Is Classpath/Jikes/Orp available on all platforms that the Classpath
> hackers currently use?

No, I'm on Cygwin, and have yet to compile a successful free VM (or for
that matter gcj).  However, I haven't really sat down and tried tweaking
ORP, yet, so maybe I can get it to work if I put some effort into it.

> Orp might be a bit x86 specific, but no other
> free VM is currently so easy to use with Classpath out of the box.
> Does the Classpath build work on a MSWindows/CygWin (sp?) system?

The build works out of the box, but only builds the .class files (no
native support).  At least, I haven't gotten native support to work.

-- 
This signature intentionally left boring.

Eric Blake             address@hidden
  BYU student, free software programmer