John O'Conner's Blog

Building Java SE 6.0 (Mustang) on Windows

Does Sun's use of the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler limit participation in the funfest that is the Mustang Collaboration effort. The Linux and Unix guys have free development tools. The Unix and Linux builds utilize open and free compilers. Not so for Windows. Windows participants must use MS VC++...nothing else will do. That means that if you want to help out in the Mustang effort, you must have Microsoft development tools, and they're neither open nor free.

So this makes me ask these questions:

• Is Sun effectively limiting the participants to Linux and Unix developers by requiring MS tools to build Mustang on Windows?
• Are the majority of community provided fixes going to be platform specific for Linux and Unix?

What do you think?

Comments

• I guess the majority of the fixes will be Java code, so I wouldn't be afraid of the platform specificity.

  The VC++ Toolkit compiler would be nice (it's free), yet it doesn't seem to provide everything necessary: http://forums.java.net/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=752&messageID=16683
  

  Posted by: mernst on September 04, 2005 at 11:12 PM

• Using the primary compiler (especially the one from the platform manufacturer) for the target platform is a good thing, as it allows the most effective use of platform resources and the largest native toolkits.

  There is no problem with that compiler not being freely available, anyone with the skills and experience needed to deliver a viable contribution will have the tools required anyway.

  Community provided "fixes" are the last thing I'd want in Java. As long as Java is a Sun product (and I do hope it stays that way and doesn't get thrown to the open source lions who'll rip it to shreds) they'll be able to integrate what they think are worthy and correct submissions into the system.

  And if it came to the OS community getting their clutches on the language spec and implementation they'd drop support for Microsoft platforms anyway out of their ingrained hatred for the company so the sources being specific to Microsoft compilers wouldn't matter anyway.

  Posted by: jwenting on September 05, 2005 at 12:08 AM

• You can use the free (as in free beer) C++ compiler that ships with .NET SDK.

  Posted by: gfx on September 05, 2005 at 01:08 AM

• @jwenting This might come as a shock to you, but Java already contains Open Source code. Actually since several revisions.

  With regards to fixing bugs, well, Sun is so painfully slow that it has become the laughing stock in some areas. USB support? Transparent Windows? System-specific Icons? A reader class which observes Unicode byte-order marks? Genue RS-232 support?

  With regards to clutches, Sun definitely doesn't need the OSS community to skrew things up. Java printing, anyone? Or JTable, all the javax.sing.text packages, broken classes like Properties (wrongly a subclass of Hashtable), the Input Method framework, nio (badly documented and MappedByteBuffer which can't be freed), etc.

  And it's not just people from the outside who see this. There is a famous memo leaked from Sun, where the Solaris guys read the Java people the riot act and complain about Java's shortcommings (particularly the delivery cycle) on Sun's very own flagship: Solaris.

  Frankly said, the open source jockeys couldn't break things as badly as Sun does. The big advantage would be that things get corrected, instead of letting them slip for eight years (e.g. platform specific icons).

  What you fail to see is the difference between competence and the ability to buy a compiler. Every code monkey can shell out the money to MS to buy their compiler. This doesn't make them in any way competent.

  To summarize: You are an idiot.

  Posted by: ewin on September 05, 2005 at 05:16 AM

• beats me!!! why on earth should we depend on VC++ ??? this is crazy

  Posted by: bsamanth on September 06, 2005 at 01:06 PM

• I'd guess that the current number of contributions for Windows or from Windows developers vs. the number of contributions for Unix or GNU/LInux or from developers running those systems, should be sufficient to answer both questions easily.

  cheers,
  dalibor topic

  Posted by: robilad on September 06, 2005 at 02:53 PM

• jwenting: I guess open source lion is meant as a compliment. Thanks.
  You're right on one thing though: if Sun ever decided to release their J2SE implementation under an open source license, whatever, at that far away point in time, would still be worth salvaging would probably be salvaged, and the rest would probably be ignored by the majority of free runtime developers.
  But rest assured, Sun is now (given that GNU Classpath, Kaffe, Gcj, IKVM, Cacao, JikesRVM & Apache Harmony are all working on providing the necessary implementations and infrastructure) certainly not going to release the J2SE source code under an open source license at all, for a long time to come. There is no need.

  cheers,
  dalibor topic

  Posted by: robilad on September 06, 2005 at 03:22 PM

• If the contribution you want to make to Mustang is pure Java code, then you could simply build that subset on Windows. There's nothing really to be gained from building the whole JDK in this case. You only need a C++ compiler if you want to add or change native code.

  Posted by: emcmanus on September 07, 2005 at 05:36 AM

• Let's see if I can upset everyone here. First, to be a really good Windows engineer, you have to drink the Redmond kool-aid, like it or not. That means not only buying (or getting your manager to buy) their retail compiler, but also getting at least the MSDN subscription with all the SDKs and OS releases, then banging your head against the monitor for several months trying to figure out that arcane environment. Because being a great Windows developer doesn't depend upon on how great you are as a coder, but on how well you understand lots of the undocumented or conflicting bits of information about that great black box we call Windows. The JDK has had many good Windows developers working on it (their foreheads all bear the mark!), and we can benefit from contributions from other good Windows developers who have gone through this hellish initiation.
  Don't take it personally if you haven't spent months combing through the Microsoft Knowledge Base searching for straws to grasp, just find a better way to make a contribution. I rewrote the Windows AWT for 1.1, and ran screaming from that platform back to Solaris and Linux as soon as possible (I have a lot of respect for those who can still work on Windows).

  As for Linux developers, please help focus on making the Linux JDK better performing. There is a lot still to be done so the Linux platform is integrated as well as the WIndows one currently is, and no proprietary tools are required to build on Linux.

  Posted by: tball on September 07, 2005 at 08:44 AM

• The free compiler in .NET sounds like a good idea, but I want to see performance numbers from a JRE built with it first. The reasons we chose Microsoft's compiler were for performance (fastest generated code) and its ability to generate correct code for all Windows platforms and processors. If the commercial tool no longer has the advantage, then there is no reason to keep using it.

  Posted by: tball on September 07, 2005 at 08:50 AM

• tball, I'm not sure you're referring to me. To quote MS (http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/):

  "What is the Visual C++ Toolkit 2003?
  The Visual C++ Toolkit is a free edition of Microsoft's professional Visual C++ optimizing compiler and standard libraries--the same optimizing compiler and standard libraries that ship in Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional! "
  

  Posted by: mernst on September 07, 2005 at 11:03 PM

• I think they should use OPENWATCOM (the product formerly known as Watcom C++) which is now open source: www.openwatcom.org

  FC

  Posted by: fcassia_at_gmail on September 26, 2005 at 04:51 PM

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