I gave Mauve a quick try (with a test harness for my
own stuff in mind). Comments:
1. It's GPL'ed, which makes it impossible to apply to
non-GPL'ed Java software.
To my understanding, any Java tool or utility that
loads a class performs linking. If GPL'ed, I violate
the license loading a non-GPL'ed class. The gnu.testlet
classes would have to be LPGL'ed to allow for use with
non-GPL'ed Java (test) sources.
2. It's alpha?
There are loads and loads of test cases, but the
harness itself seems minimal (see below). E.g. SRCDIR
is not used all.
3. What the heck is it with Java long options?
It is consistently confusing me whether I'm supposed to
use --long or -long options. SimpleTestHarness implements
the Sun Microsystems way, not the GNU way.
4. autoconf for Java?
I mean, it's a nice habit, but short of testing native
code and JNI, is this necessary? Is there something
going for having to use all the bells and whistles
even witrh pure Java?
There is a rather limited set of parameters (source
classpath, bytecode destination classpath, name of
javac, java) that might as well be read from a property
file. I think that being UNIX-centric with the Java
parts of a project is wrong - the (Java) built
environment of a project should require a JRE, a
classes ZIP file, and nothing else (thus work everywhere).
Each time I check out some gnu.* or other stuff, I run
into the same things. I always wind up writing small
shell scripts, and repeatedly use:
find to get a list of Java files from a (sub)tree
awk to map file names to *.java/*.class, and / to .
Then there's JavaMake and JavaDeps, gnu.getopt (several?),
gnu.regex (several!). I just joined the debian-java list,
and find them heading for similarly confusing setups. Hope
this does not end up with debian.*, gnu.* and lots of
overlap.
Maybe Classpath is the wrong place (as you are doing
lots and lots of native code) to get this started, but
shouldn't the first step be a basic pure Java built
environment from a set of LGPL'ed gnu.* packages:
a javadeps, javamake, javafind, (simple) jawk utility
set and a sample property file (generate this one
from configure if you have to).
If somebody is (interested on) working on this (LGPL'ed),
drop me a line. Is there a gnu.* CVS somewhere now (the
web page just points to other sites it seems)? A
maintainer?
b.
