>Second, I'd like for Classpath to support Kiev extensions that don't
>compromise 100% pure java compatibility. The special Kiev comments look
>like they will do the trick. I think our first priority still needs to be
>getting a first release that supports Japhar out the door. However, going
>forward it shouldn't be too much trouble to add in Kiev assertion
statements
>at the beginning of most methods. We can go back later and add that to the
>existing classes.
>
>What exactly would you like to see us do to support Kiev specific features?
>I'm not familiar enough with the features of it to know for sure what items
>we would want to include.
There are too many of them, see documentation at http://forestro.com/kiev/
But I understand, that most of them are incompatible with normal java
sources. So, the most valuable in this situation may be only
coll-by-contract and assert/trace features. BTW, writing kiev compiler
itself I've found it's *very* helpful for debugging. I'm pretty shure, that
the time you'll spend to copy/paste ;-) those conditions - will save
your time you'd spend to test/debug the libraries.
Some other features may be valuable in other situations. For example -
conditional compilation based on command-line values. Or, if someone
is going to start writing swing-like lib - delegation and non-abstract
methods of interfaces may be very helpful and make source code
about 2 to 3 times smaller.
Well, you may like incremental mode of compilation too ;-)
But currently, I think, call-by-contract is the most wanted feature,
since with the help of library that supports it - it's possible
to dramatically decrease number of errors in java programs.
PS I understand that japhar compatibility is the primary goal
now. Just do your work, and check if kiev compiler may help
with it. When the release of $classpath will be done, then we
may back to old classes. I hope that at this time there will be
enough bugs/wishes found for kiev compiler.
PPS Sorry to say, but I failed compile kiev under japhar/kaffe.
Japahr has some unimplemented native methods, and both
japhar and kaffe required too much of memory... At least
more then 4 times to compare with Sun's jdk...
PPPS Until link to sources will be put on the web page -
you may get sources as http://forestro.com/kiev/kiev-0.08-src.tar.gz
if you wish.
