kaffe/gcj (was: Re: Quitting debian-java)

[Seth Arnold <sarnold@willamette.edu>]

* Bob Ham <u9rah@dcs.shef.ac.uk> [010312 03:25]:
> I was under the impression that Gcj's main purpose was to build a java
> compiler, as opposed to Kaffe's which was to build a VM, having KJC as
> an aside.  Did I miss something?

Because gcj can compile directly to native machine code, gcj can compete
against kaffe without having to supply a VM in the traditional (java)
sense. Instead, gcj provides a library with important functions that
take the place of the VM. (Can an application be statically linked
against libgcj so that the target platform doesn't need libgcj or
loadable library support?)

Kaffe also supplies a source to bytecode compiler, so it can compete
against gcj without ever involving their VM.

I hope this helps more than confuses... :)

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