[kaffe] Kaffe Documentation / JIT for VLIW

[Dalibor Topic]

--- Gerlando Falauto <iurly at writeme.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, Archie Cobbs wrote:
> 
> > Gerlando Falauto wrote:
> > > > Compiling kaffe on linux with CFLAGS -ansi
> -pedantic
> > > > first, might help fix some of the portability
> > > > problems. If you do so, please send us the
> patches.
> > > 
> > > This is a very neat idea, thanks a lot. I will
> definitely give it a shot.  
> > 
> > This may be a ridiculous suggestion depending on
> what else you
> > will be doing with your new hardware but... you
> might even consider
> > trying to port GCC to your new architecture. The
> process is complicated
> > but fairly well documented, and not as impossible
> as it sounds :-)
> 
> Actually I do appreciate your suggestion, though you
> are overestimating my
> potential.  

Now that've got qt-awt in, and Saxon is working again,
I can try to save your life. Classical case of
priority inversion, I know ;)

I guess porting GCC is worth a thesis alone;) So that
is probably not an option.

If you don't have gcc available, you may have to do
quite a bit of clean up. I for one welcome that, as
the results of running kaffe's sources through splint
are not pretty. Or sending it through gcc with all
warnings enabled, not just -Wall.

It would also allow easier porting to other weird,
gcc-less architectures. There was someone wanting to
port kaffe to minix recently, that's also a platform
without a gcc, so you guys could get together and
clean up the sources, wherever you spot trouble. I'll
be more than happy to see patches. And whatever docs
you write ;)

Step one would be to fix gcc-isms until the
interpreter compiles on your platform. Then get the
interpreter to work, as it will be most useful during
debugging in order to get the VM core to work on your
platform. Step three would be to write jit3
definitions and macros for your platform, and step 4
to get it to work. You'll probably find Edouard's JIT
porting guide useful during that phase.

You may encounter areas where kaffe is not 64 bits or
128 bits clean. I guess as most developement is done
on 32 bit systems, such things can slip through. You'd
have to clean them up. Again, splint & gcc with all
warnings enabled are your friends.

best regards,

dalibor topic

P.S: If you still want to kill yourself, I recommend
the suicide methods FAQ so you can make an informed decision.

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