Re: Classpath build process and VM-specific issues

[Andrew Haley]

Etienne Gagnon writes:
 > Jeroen Frijters wrote:
 > >>>Indeed. The goal is to find the optimal solution that would be spec
 > >>>compliant, portable and efficient.
 > 
 > and later:
 > > I'm not the one nitpicking about pure ISO C portability (I don't use
 > > JNI, so I couldn't care less), ...
 > 
 > and later:
 > >>and is of thus ranks lower than my proposal on 2 counts:
 > >>1- Efficiency:
 > > 
 > > For a JNI based implementation, maybe, but I'd argue that anyone using
 > > JNI doesn't care about performance anyway.
 > 
 > You contradict yourself.  First you say that the optimal is spec compliant,
 > portable, and efficient.  Then you say that you couldn't care less about
 > the spec compliant JNI interface, that portability across JVMs/compilers
 > on a single platform is of no interest, and that efficiency of JNI is
 > not an objective of your proposal.
 > 
 > OK. So, it is clear that I am wasting my time, here.  I now clearly 
 > understand
 > that the main motivation is for Classpath to use less portable approaches 
 > when
 > they make CNI faster, as the performance of CNI and the other non-spec 
 > compliant
 > interfaces is the main objective.

Come on now.  We need to find a clean way to do this, and although it
may seem like I'm being overly pushy, my main concern is to do what's
right for everyone who uses JNI in Classpath, long term.

Perhaps we need to define what we're really aiming at.

I would have thought:

1.  Correctness (well-defined on the platforms we care about.)
2.  Portability (to the platforms we care about.)
3.  Maintainability/Readability of code.
4.  Efficiency.

Does anyone really disagree with these priorities?  Okay, perhaps we
need to agree what platforms we care about.

 > Fine.  I'll devote my time elsewhere.

That's a shame.  I wouldn't like to think I was responsible in some
way for pushing you (and SableVM) away form the Classpath list.

It seems to me that we've been focussing on small details without
agreeing on our goals.  The goals of IKVM and SableVM are different,
but I feel sure that a compromise is possible.

Andrew.