Re: Classpath build process and VM-specific issues

[Per Bothner]

Etienne Gagnon wrote:

> I am starting to have difficulty understanding Classpath's goals and 
> motivations.
>
> When I proposed to add to Classpath some mechanism to allow it to be 
> customized to each VM, I was told that it would be a heresy to encode 
> any VM-specific thing into Classpath, as the vision was: a single 
> Classpath installation would be shared by many VMs on a single system, 
> e.g. common class libraries, common JNI libraries, etc.
>
> Now, what you are proposing is that JNI libraries would be compiled 
> specifically for each VM.  What have I missed?

That I do not speak for Classpath, and that different people have
different goals and opinions.

Personally, I don't see much point in "common class libraries, common
JNI libraries".  It might be neat, but:
(a) it complicates getting good performance, and
(b) coordinating Classpath and VM releses would be too difficult.

Yes, it's more elegant to install a single copy of Classpath, but
GCJ is not going to use the "system installation" of Classpath, and
I wouldn't expect others to do so either.
--
        --Per Bothner
address@hidden   http://per.bothner.com/