[boehm-gc] Import 6.3 alpha 1

Wed Jul 30 16:46:00 GMT 2003

On 30 Jul 2003, Tom Tromey wrote:
> Jeff> This is an example of what blocks us from using gcj from "real
> Jeff> world" applications.
>> I think it is valid for B to be loaded in this situation.

Sure, but is it required? If the answer is "yes", the JRE is broken.
(And probably won't ever be fixed.)
> Of course, correctness isn't the only thing. There's plenty of bogus
> code out there, that you might actually want to run :-(.

Exactly. And java developers in general don't care about correctness;
just making something run with the JRE is good enough for them.
I've had actual conversations like "why did you commit that code? It
wasn't broken." "To make this project build with gcj again." "Isn't gcj
Java-compliant? Why do we have to do anything special for gcj?" And so
on.
Keeping our code gcj-buildable is an uphill battle that impairs my free
time to develop, or sell gcj within our organization.
While we're on the topic: a major goal I'd like to see come from this
binary compatibility work is to eliminate the "duplicate class
registration" error. Don't allow it to happen, ever.
(Apologies for the rant, I'm having a bad day.)
Jeff