Hi Roland On 09/09/2007, Roland Getty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi Sian, > > I've really just started on this and at the moment I'm looking at trying > to > > get unpack to work for some simple cases. I will be focussing on unpack > > first and possibly pack after that. Any help would be great - is there > > any > > specific area that you would like to work in? > > > > Time-wise it's looking like several months work to get unpack finished, > as > > Tim suggested. > > > Yes getting unpack to work before starting with pack seems the way to go. > I > just did some more reading about pack200 specifications. It seems to be > really complicated - much more then I initially expected. Is Harmony > really > trying to do the first clean room implementation of pack200 in 100% Java? > It > seems there are so many other JDKs from Classpath, IBM, Bea, Apple, etc. > Do > they all build on Suns JDK? Or could one ask for code donations for this > specific part of Harmony before going to the hassle of implementing > pack200 > from scratch.
I think the answer is yes - all these do build on Sun's JDK apart from Classpath, which I don't think has done pack200 (and is not under a compatible license anyway). So it is likely that we are trying to do the first clean-room implementation in Harmony. I agree that the spec is very complicated, but like Alex said, he has already spent quite a lot of time on this and made a fair bit of progress. If you're still interested in getting involved then there are some quite well defined areas that you could contribute to without having to understand the whole spec. I am thinking of starting a pack200 wiki page to track progress and identify areas that are not currently being worked on, which I thought might be helpful for people who want to get involved. Thanks, Sian -- Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU
