Re: Get involved on Harmony

["Geir Magnusson Jr." <ge...@apache.org>]

On Oct 27, 2005, at 5:03 AM, Graham Smith wrote:

> On Monday 24 October 2005 18:45, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote:
>
>>
>> Correct except for :
>>
>> 1) I'm not fearless
>> 2) I'm not the leader.  We're all peers :)
>>
>
> Yes boss. Erm peer :)

Seriously, yes, oh peer.

>
>
>>
>>
>>> We need people who _do_ know something about a topic as well as  
>>> people
>>> who do _not_ know.  For example, myself.  I have worked with Java
>>> for a
>>> good while, and I have some good experience in Unix, Windows, and
>>> real-time systems.  Therefore, I felt I could write a JVM for this
>>> project.  However, I do _not_ know anything about Java memory
>>> allocation
>>> and de-allocation (known as "garbage collection") systems, as is
>>> evident
>>> from recent list postings.  However, several other people do.  Their
>>> experience will fill in my gap and I will learn something along the
>>> way.
>>>
>>
>> Exactly.  For example, I'm trying to cover the "have people who don't
>> know" aspect, as I don't have a clue :)
>>
>> Welcome... just get involved.
>>
>
> I'm in a similar position to Joäo. I've been reading this list for  
> a few weeks
> thinking that I might be able to help with the harmony project but  
> don't
> understand most of what is said (which I find very depressing) as  
> it all
> seems to be C related.

The shudders go away at some point.  I used to do lots of low-level C  
and I have to say it's been tough to come back to it.

>
> I've been a Java developer (web applications mostly) for a longer  
> than I care
> to think about while sober but wouldn't know C from Perl. This  
> makes me think
> that, at present at least, I probably won't be able to have much  
> input.

That's not true.  We have lots of things to do.  For example, we have  
the entire toolsuite that comes w/t he JDK to do.  Find something in  
there, and get going.  it *can* be in Java, because we assume at some  
point we get to be self hosting with things like that.

>
> AIUI though harmony will eventually write it's own core class  
> libraries
> (java.util, java.sql, javax.swing, etc etc ) which is where I think  
> I could
> be most productive.

Well, we're never going to stand in the way of someone volunteering  
to do what they want to do.

>
> What I suppose I am trying to ask is what area(s) do you think I  
> would be most
> useful working in? What I am hoping is that someone with a good  
> understanding
> of the project will be able to point me in the direction of an  
> overview or
> towards areas that best fit my current skills which will help get  
> me started.
> I've not worked on a project this large before and it's quite  
> daunting to be
> faced with the whole project all at once.

And this is only going to get worse.  What we're seeing is the tiny,  
pointy little tip of the iceberg :)  People are going to pine for the  
days when things were so quiet and simple.

Take a look at the toolsuite - see what catches your interest.

geir

>
> Thanks,
>
> Graham
>
>
>

-- 
Geir Magnusson Jr                                  +1-203-665-6437
geirm@apache.org

Re: Get involved on Harmony

[Mark Wielaard <ma...@klomp.org>]

Hi,

On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 18:49 -0500, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote:
> > I've not worked on a project this large before and it's quite  
> > daunting to be faced with the whole project all at once.
> 
> And this is only going to get worse.  What we're seeing is the tiny,  
> pointy little tip of the iceberg :)  People are going to pine for the  
> days when things were so quiet and simple.

:) I have trouble keeping up already!
We seem to be making enormous progress the last couple of months.

> Take a look at the toolsuite - see what catches your interest.

Good point! That was what I had forgotten in my previous email.
Here is the list of tools projects that I am aware of:

- compiler: Several candidates.
  - jikes http://www.jikes.org/
    Fast an pretty compliant source to byte code compiler written in
    C++. Ideal for bootstrapping a system quickly.
  - ecj http://www.eclipse.org/
    The compiler of the Eclipse project. Written in java. Some people
    are surprised that this compiler can be used stand alone. But it
    actually is the default compiler on Fedora Core systems now.
    (Compiled with gcj no native code to make it as fast, if not faster
     then jikes). Already supports most of the 1.5 language constructs.
  - gcj(x) http://gcc.gnu.org/java/ and http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GCJX
    This is not just a source to byte code compiler, but also a gcc
    frontend so that it can produce native code. gcjx, the next
    generation gcj, will also be able to generate jni and cni header
    files from source. And will support the new 1.5 language constructs.
    (Tom Tromey, who is on this list is the main developer, so I will
     let him hype it some more.)

- javadoc replacement.
  - gjdoc http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/cp-tools/
  This is the GNU documentation generation framework for java source
  files. It should be command line compatible with javadoc and comes
  with a full Taglet and Doclet interface. We use it to generate the
  documentation on http://developer.classpath.org/doc/
  (Julian Scheid does most of the work on this these days.)
  There is also texidoclet A "doclet" for converting comments into GNU
  TexInfo source.

- browser plug-in.
  - gcjwebplugin and gcjappletviewer http://www.nongnu.org/gcjwebplugin/
  Despite the name it isn't gcj specific. I have been told the name
  actually stands for "Groovy Cool Jive". It works nicely with mozilla.
  It does depend on the GNU EmbeddedWindow awt extensions that GNU
  Classpath provides.
  (Michael Koch and Thomas Fitzsimmons work on this. Sven de Marothy is
   writing Qt-AWT-peers to make embedding into konqueror on the KDE
   platform nicer.)

- jar replacement.
  - fastjar as shipped with gcc.
  - kaffe jar.
  Both seem pretty complete. What seems to be missing is a good
  testsuite for all the corner cases.

- javah replacement.
  - gcjh as shipped with gcc. Written in C which makes bootstrapping
    easier in some cases.
  - kaffeh as shipped with kaffe. There were recently lots of bug fixes
    here. Written in java.
  - javah as shipped with GNU Classpath Tools, written in java.
  - gcjx (as mentioned above) will be able to generate jni and cni
    headers from java source files. Written in C++.

- native2ascii replacement.
  - Kaffe, GNU Classpath Tools and gcc have this.
  All written in java. The one that comes with gcc is called jv-convert.

- javap replacement.
  - GNU Classpath Tools comes with a javap implementation in java.
  - GCC comes with jcf-dump written in C, which is a bit more powerful
    then the one in GNU Classpath Tools and is a really nice tool when
    bootstrapping stuff.

- serialver replacement.
  - GNU Classpath Tools comes with a very simple one written in java.

- rmic and rmiregistry
  - GNU Classpath Tools comes with grmic and grmiregistry.
    (These were recently rewritten by Archit Shah)
    Both are also shipped with gcc and kaffe.

- keytool
  - GNU Crypto contains an implementation by Casey Marshall.

GNU Classpath Tools also contains all kinds of utilities needed for
implemention the stuff above or the core libraries themselves that might
be interesting. See http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/cp-tools/

Hope there is something in that list you would like to hack on.

Cheers,

Mark

-- 
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