Re: Running Eclipse on Jikes RVM and Classpath (Prize money inside!)

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi Michael,

On Mon, 2003-04-07 at 23:00, Michael Hind wrote:
> > - Jikes RVM (2.1.1): Starts Eclipse amazingly fast. Only roadblock
> seems
> > to be that it is not yet selfhosting. (It would be OK to use a
> non-free,
> > proprietary VM to start the bootstrap, but after this it should be
> able
> > to bootstrap itself.)
> 
> If I understand you correctly, I think we are currently doing what you
> say is "OK".    We currently use a non-free JVM to build a boot image
> (a file containing the memory image of the Jikes RVM).  Then to run an
> application we use open free software to read the file and begin
> executing.  There is no other JVM when the application (or Jikes RVM)
> is running, i.e., all VM requests by the application and VM itself
> (Jikes RVM is written in Java) are handled by Jikes RVM.
> 
> Since Jikes RVM is written in Java we should be able to useJikes RVM
> for the offline step, building the boot image, as well.  However, we
> haven't gotten there yet.

I really meant that last step. Like the GCC C compiler you might need an
existing (proprietary) C compiler to begin the bootstrap, but after that
you should be able to build newer versions of the C compiler with the
bootstrapped version, even when the old (proprietary) compiler is
removed from the system.

So when I have build the Jikes RVM boot image once I should be able to
remove all traces of the non-free JVM and be able to build a new image.

I would accept it if you used a free VM to build the memory image
though. In that case self-hosting/bootstrapping is unnecessary since no
non-free software was used.

Sorry for being unwilling to let go of the prize money so soon :)

Cheers,

Mark