Re: java-common proposal: whichjava (not findjava)
[ Late reply due to backlog. ]
On Sun, Sep 02, 2001 at 06:13:04PM -0500, Ben Burton wrote:
> Okay. I have a new proposal for java-common, namely the scripts
> /usr/bin/whichjava and /usr/bin/whichjavac.
>
> What these do is take the given Java interpreter/compiler and spit out
> properties such as which variant they represent (jikes, kaffe, whatever) and
> where the bootstrap classes are.
This is a neat idea--there really should be a standard way to
classify and query the capabilities of a VM or compiler. I would be
happy to see it used in order to identify fundamental
incompatibilites.
However, I would still be unhappy to see this used to work around
packaging problems or as a substitute for the lack of sufficient
policy on such basic matters as what a java or javac alternative
should do. Java in Debian is still new enough that we should be
able to standardize these things before chaos sets in. I'm
disappointed that people aren't very interested in solving these
problems on the policy side.
On the other hand, nobody else has objected, so maybe I'm just
standing in the way of realistic pragmatism. After all, you're the
one doing the work right now. :-)
Andrew
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