gcj and jikes

Fri Apr 25 20:23:00 GMT 2003

>>>>> "Per" == Per Bothner <per@bothner.com> writes:

Per> I think we need to look ahead to JDK 1.5, with its semi-announced
Per> support for generics and more. Iff the Jikes maintainers are
Per> committed to supporting future Java languages changes, at least the
Per> ones we can see coming doing down the pike, then it may be
Per> a good thing to do. Though it might still be reasonable to wait
Per> until the first JDK 1.5 alpha is out.
That makes sense. Here's what Eric had to say about jikes and
generics last time we talked about this:
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/java/2003-02/msg00391.html
I'm bringing this up since I'm dissatisfied with gcj's progress. We
aren't making great progress fixing bugs -- the gcj .java front end
still has many known problems, and my impression is that most large
packages require a tweak or two to build with gcj. I really don't see
how something as big as generics is going to be implemented, given our
current apparent manpower.
Basically, I think we're behind the curve on the front end. Even if
jikes never implements generics, using it as the front end would be a
noticeable improvement for users. On top of that, jikes is simply a
better base to build on. I find the code cleaner and easier to
follow.
Not that jikes couldn't use some improvement. E.g., there are a lot
of down-casts that should be changed to use dynamic_cast<>, for
safety.
Tom