Hello all,
On Sun, May 15, 2005 at 06:42:16PM -0400, Patrice Le Vexier wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> correct me if i'm wrong, but, to make a J2SE platform, we need:
>
> - a compiler (javac)
> - a JVM (maybe a simple interpreter at first time, then a jit/wat/xxx of the
> death)
> - class library (classpath as good bet)
> - some tools (appletviewer, keytool etc)
> - an installer
> - ...
True, but from an architect's point of view, I believe we should look
closer at some fundamentals WRT requirements and at a common
implementation layer. Questions such as
a) Do we have a go from Apache and Sun Legal to actually pursue this
project? (Noone wants to end up in a legal battle somewhere down the
road).
==> Geir? Your ball?
b) Which OS's should be targeted?
(This gives info for a baseline to installation and OS
abstraction layers.)
Given experience from some large open source projects such as Debian
GNU/Linux, targeting a multitude of OS'es can slow down the project
considerably - while at the same time creating a de-facto standard in
strength of its many platform options.
==> Is it sensible to start with the OSs [Windows 2K/XP, Linux <pick
libc version>, Solaris, Mac OS X]?
c) Could we augment the proposed architecture in
(http://people.apache.org/~geirm/harmony.jpg) by introducing an OS
abstraction layer (OAL) to failitate porting? (Similar to the
strategy used for GCC porting.)
Placing a quick sketch of this on
http://www.jguru.se/images/harmony_OAL.jpg
d) What strategy do we pick WRT JDK tool implementation? I would
recommend that we create a common library that can be used by all
tools. That way, we can minimize the porting effort to different
OS'es and have a single library to distribute instead of a splay
of smaller ones.
Placing a small sketch of this on
http://www.jguru.se/images/ctl.jpg
> I know we're at the very first stage of the development and a lot of stuff
> are currently actively discussed, but is there nothing of this list we can
> begin to code, maybe just as proof of concept, or to try some solutions ?
Since Harmony is potentially an *extremely* important project, I
recommend that we stick to the Apache development process. We will have
quite a lot to code soon enough.
Patience.
;)
---
// Lennart Jörelid, Senior J2EE Architect
// jGuru Europe AB
// [EMAIL PROTECTED]
