Kaffe 1.0b5

[Mark S. Miller]

At 02:00 PM 10/26/99 , Paul Snively wrote:
> >  >>... Unfortunately, the Cygnus Java is not far enough along for
> >  >> them to test it.
> >  >
> >  >I'm not interested in Java compilers generating native code anyway.
> >
> > Why not?  I am.
>
>Eh... guess I'm hung up on the idea of being able to haul a little .jar file
>around

[-] There is no conflict between compilation to native and portability

As your text below accurately explains:

>That doesn't
>mean that someone couldn't/shouldn't run their .jar file through a compiler
>that goes from Java bytecodes to native code if they want to target a
>specific platform, however.

[+] Cygnus's ClassLoader should do this transparently.

E is written in pure Java and distributed as pure jvm bytecodes in a .jar file.  E shouldn't care when or how a jvm implementation arranges to be able to execute the computation described by these bytecodes, as long as the jvm does so correctly.

I would like to distribute E as a fully linked .exe for various platforms *as well*, as that will allow installation without a prior jvm install, and because it should give astonishingly faster startup times than Java apps currently experience.  However, we won't drop our pure-Java .jar distribution.



         Cheers,
         --MarkM