Jikes RVM

Mon Mar 4 02:07:00 GMT 2002

> > > There's also the IBM RJVM (I think that's what it is called), but I
> > > haven't really looked at it yet. It might be doable.
> > 
> > It's called the JikesRVM (no relation to the jikes compiler except the
> > name). It is a bytecode interpreter implemented completely in Java, at
> > least that's what their web site claims. I haven't looked at it any
> > closer myself, either.

http://www-124.ibm.com/developerworks/oss/jikesrvm/
JikesRVM is a compiler driven JVM, it never actually interprets java bytecode. 
It has a bootstrapping process whereby its compilers are used (run via a normal JVM)
 to compile a 'boot image' containing all the relevant code for the machine to be able 
to load, compile and run new code.

> At the release of the JikesRVM to the public the IBM folks seemed
> interested in making it work with Classpath in order to make the lives
> of researchers easier. The current library set comes from some
> company IBM swallowed and isn't all that free.

I've spent a fair amount of time on this process and have received some JRVM specific code
 from IBM. I'm still some way off from Running "hello world" without the proprietary library
 classes, but I am making progress.

> There are a few classes that would have to be very different from our
> implementations (not even part of the VM specific set we know and
> love), they asked about including those with Classpath, and I said it
> was okay. I've never heard anything else from those folks.

Which classes were those, and who were those folks?
John Leuner