Re: Bug#44460: Fails to comply with the proposed Java Policy

["Cris J. Holdorph" <holdorph@home.com>]

Stephane Bortzmeyer Writes:
> > In addition, you don't seem to be aware that the Java programming
> > language and the ".class" bytecode format are two entirely different
> > things, 
> 
> Thanks. Before you, nobody on debian-java was aware of the difference.

I disagree.  I was/am well aware of the difference between Java code and
Java bytecode.  To me, it's like knowing the difference between .C source
code and .O object code.
 
> > package, "bock", has nothing to do with the bytecode format at all; it
> > compiles Java source code to C.
> 
> I regard it as a Java compiler, then. Of a "special" kind.
 
I have to admit, strictly speaking, anything that takes .java source code and
gets it into a format that is runnable is a java compiler by definition of
'compiler' (and what it's "compiling").  BUT...  I think we need to look at
what end-users would want out of a package that provides 'java-compiler'.
Personally, I would want something that gave me java bytecode.  So, from a
user point of view I would not want to see bock provide 'java-compiler',
because then I might install that instead of a "normal" java compiler that
provides bytecode.

The only thing to look at is if bock needs anything else, like java .jar
class libraries to be able to do it's compilation.  If it is dependent on
NO java anything, then I can see the point that there is no reason for it
to even depend on java-common.  If bock, does require some kind of java
library, or resource to work, then I think it should depend on java-common
and the appropriate other packages.

---- Cris J H

-- 
Cris J. Holdorph
holdorph@home.com