Re: Java development on debian ppc
On Thursday 29 June 2000, at 14 h 11,
"C.M. Connelly" <c@eskimo.com> wrote:
> Following your suggestion, I took a look at Kaffe's Web site and
> downloaded the source tar file.
There is no need to do so. Since there is a Debian package, 'apt-get install
kaffe' should suffice. But:
> 1. Compatibility. Kaffe isn't as up-to-date as the Sun/Blackdown
> JDK,
Stuff which is only available in a non-free software does not interest me.
BTW, you pointed Sun's marketing plan: despite the hype about Java, the
language is not perfectly free, since some features are not available to
anybody.
This sort of information seems to me more as Java-bashing than Kaffe-bashing.
tell that to an assembly of C programmers and no one would want to switch to
Java!
> 2. Convenience. Kaffe isn't available as a binary package for
> PowerPC. They do have Debian packages (unlike Blackdown), but
> only for the i386 architecture.
No, there is at least the Alpha version in Debian. (I didn't test it but the
".deb" is in the Debian archive.)
> 3. Compilability. Kaffe simply doesn't build on PowerPC Linux
> systems
I wasn't aware of this problem (I didn't try kaffe on PowerPC). You should
report this as a bug and an important one. Unless it is done, there is little
incentive to work on the problem since kaffe's maintainer may be not even
aware of the fact.
> That means that presenting Kaffe as a free alternative to the
> Sun/Blackdown JDK on PowerPC is a false lead --
I would rephrase it: if there is no Free Java solution (which means a real and
workable one, on all platforms, and without segmentation faults at every
opportunity), then we should stop working with Java and start encouraging
people to switch to another language.
--
http://www.debian.org/~bortz/
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