PATCH RFA: Do not build java by default

Thu Nov 18 15:23:00 GMT 2010

On 11/18/10 02:23, Mark Mitchell wrote:
> On 11/11/2010 3:20 PM, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
>> On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 12:09 PM, Ian Lance Taylor<iant@google.com> wrote:
>>> Currently we build the Java frontend and libjava by default. At the GCC
>>> Summit we raised the question of whether should turn this off, thus only
>>> building it when java is explicitly selected at configure time with
>>> --enable-languages. Among the people at the summit, there was general
>>> support for this, and nobody was opposed to it.
>> I count 33 messages on the topic and it is clear that there is no
>> consensus. I am withdrawing this proposed patch.
> [ ... ]
>> The bottom line is that libjava takes a very long time to build and that
> the marginal benefit is out of proportion to the cost. Building
> zillions of Java class files cannot be the best way to test non-call
> exceptions. If we have no tests for non-call exceptions in the C/C++
> testsuite, perhaps you (Ian) could write a few in C++?
To put this in perspective, eliminating java cuts my build cycle time by 
more than 50%.
> I think that it should still be the case that if you break Java, and one
> of the Java testers catches you, you still have an obligation to fix the
> problem. All we're changing is whether you build Java by default;
> nothing else.
Agreed. I'd really like to see java removed from the default languages; 
I just don't see the cost vs benefit justifies keeping java in the 
default languages.
Jeff