Sun JDK

[Paul Thomas]

On 29/04/2004 03:02 Carlos Rodrigues wrote:
> Joe Dumais wrote:
>> gcj is a java source code compiler that supports both byte code
>> and binary compilations/linkings.  Every piece of code that I
>> have written that compiles in gcj compiles on the Sun JDK for
>> byte code applications.  I have not investigated the JDK
>> sufficiently to know if it supports binary compilations.
> 
> Thanks anyway but I was asking if I could drop Sun's JDK on Fedora Core 
> 2 and have the Java apps shipped with it start using it instead of the 
> runtime provided by GCJ/GNU Classpath without making any significant 
> changes, just like if they had been built with it.
> I prefer to use Sun's JDK (and I intend to start developing using 
> 1.5/Tiger) and if I could just install that and not have to 
> recompile/reinstall ant and all that, that would be a nice bonus.

I'd be wary of throwing out the JDK just yet. GCJ is pretty new and only 
supports a sub-set of the Java SE APIs (incomplete swing for instance). As 
a Java professional, I don't really see why I should put up with a partial 
implementation and I certainly wouldn't choose to push my clients in that 
direction ATM.

> 
> Carlos
> 
> PS: Sun's JDK does not support native compilation, only bytecode.

Plus JIT/Hotspot on that bytecode. I tried the GCJ build of Tomcat on FC1 
a while ago and it's performance is abysmal. I suspect this is because, 
although it has a bytecode interpreter, it lacks JIT compilation. Maybe 
they'll fix that someday.

Having said all of this, I do hope that GCJ/Classpath continues and 
improves. There could be advantages to be had in not having to have a JRE 
installed to run a program.
  -- 
Paul Thomas
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