From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 25595 invoked by alias); 1 Nov 2010 10:31:30 -0000 Received: (qmail 25565 invoked by uid 22791); 1 Nov 2010 10:31:29 -0000 X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.7 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,FREEMAIL_FROM,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE,TW_GC,TW_IB X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from mail-wy0-f175.google.com (HELO mail-wy0-f175.google.com) (74.125.82.175) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.43rc1) with ESMTP; Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:31:24 +0000 Received: by wya21 with SMTP id 21so5295509wya.20 for ; Mon, 01 Nov 2010 03:31:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.227.131.200 with SMTP id y8mr3319707wbs.209.1288607481565; Mon, 01 Nov 2010 03:31:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [192.168.2.99] (cpc2-cmbg8-0-0-cust61.5-4.cable.virginmedia.com [82.6.108.62]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id f14sm5040960wbe.14.2010.11.01.03.31.19 (version=SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Mon, 01 Nov 2010 03:31:20 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4CCE9C7D.9060405@gmail.com> Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:31:00 -0000 From: Dave Korn User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.17 (Windows/20080914) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ian Lance Taylor CC: gcc@gcc.gnu.org, java@gcc.gnu.org, gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org, java-patches@gcc.gnu.org Subject: Re: PATCH RFA: Do not build java by default References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mailing-List: contact java-help@gcc.gnu.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: java-owner@gcc.gnu.org X-SW-Source: 2010-11/txt/msg00005.txt.bz2 On 31/10/2010 19:09, Ian Lance Taylor wrote: > Java in the same category as Ada and Objective C++. The main argument > in favor of this proposal is twofold: 1) building libjava is a large > component of gcc bootstrap time, and thus a large component in the > amount of time it takes to test changes; Proposing to change the compiler as a solution to that problem seems to be a category error to me. You can achieve the same end-result by social rather than technical means: just change the rules for patch submission to say "You don't have to test your patch against Java". > 2) it is in practice very > unusual for middle-end or back-end changes to cause problems with Java > without also causing problems for C/C++, This seems like false reasoning as well. It may (or may not - I don't suppose anyone's actually done the number on this, have they?) be unusual, but the bugs that meet this criterion are nonetheless real bugs that we do not want to put into our compiler if we can possibly help it, they will subsequently need discovering, analysing and fixing, and will require manpower and resources to do so. I find it hard not to expect that the long-term outcome will be a gradual decline in quality of gcj if we do this. Particularly on minority platforms, which are exactly the ones that have the least manpower available to fix problems. For these reasons, my "vote" is against making this change. cheers, DaveK