[kaffe] Kaffe(VM) is obsolte! *please read, some very interresting suggestions*

[Dalibor Topic]

--- Linuxhippy <linuxhippy at web.de> wrote:
> Hi there!

G'day mate!

> 
> I dont want to FUD kaffe-folks, but please think a
> bit about my ideas
> why developing kaffe is a waste of time.

You're free to waste your time as you wish. You won't
get far telling me how to waste mine.

> Kaffe is not powerful enough to be a
> java-replacement, in many part gcj
> beats kaffe in both, performance and plenarity.

"Plenarity"? Beats me, for sure.

I would assume that there are some applications where
using an Ahead-Of-Time compiler like gcj can result in
higher performance than using kaffe's jit, or
interpreter engine.

I am impressed by the amount of good work that has
gone into improving gcj. I hope gcj, and all other
"java-replacements", keep getting better.

> But GCJ has not those features, which so many people
> like on Java: No
> linker problems!

I have some trouble with your writing style. You're
obviously very enthusiastic about something. I have a
hard time figuring out what it is.

Calm down. This is e-mail. You have all the time of
the world to write your thoughts down. Preview before
you post ;)

> There a three different Classpath implementations on
> the "market". First
> theres the GNU-Classpath implementation (I think
> this is the most
> useful, because every VM can use it without big
> effort), the
> Kaffe-Implementation and then the GCJ
> implementation.

Actually, there are more. I still don't get what
you're talking about.
 
> Please do not misunderstand me! I think a free
> Java-Enviroment is
> absolutly needed!

I'd prefer world peace, feeding the hungry, educating
the illiterate, giving everyone access to medical
care, etc. over a free Java environment any day. But I
respect your choice.

> But I think it would be better to concertrate all
> developer-recources
> onto one or two projects instead of developing ten
> or more different not
> java-compatible VMs with their own CLasspath!

It may come as a surprise to you, but that's not how
free software development works, in my experience.
There is no "developer resources deparment" that picks
the two projects to live and kills all the others. 

Nobody should, in my opinion, walk around telling free
people what they should do with their own time.

If you, nevertheless, want to try to do it, and rally
free software developers to "concentrate
developer-resources" on some projects of your liking,
my "free as in beer" advice would be to avoid telling
those developers that they have been wasting their
time doing their obsolete things, whatever these
things are.  

> My suggestion would be to develop the Java-Interface
> of Mono instead of
> wasting recources in developing so many different
> JVMs!

Go ahead. As long as your resources are not wasted,
why should you bother?

> Of course, I hate .NET and C#, because I think those
> technics are made
> for detroying Linux and make the programmes
> dependent on MS.

I find it very childish to hate abstract things like
computer languages and APIs. You might as well hate
the number 31, it won't hate you back. It won't care,
either.

> But on the other hand, I think it would be a big
> chance for Linux and
> all the other free OS's to cath up with
> "binary-compytibility" to
> MS-Winodws(.NET). WINE tried this a very long time
> ago, and was never
> ready for critical use, because all the
> Winddows-APIS and MFC were so
> big und undokumented, that it was simply impossible
> to implement the
> whole shit...

That's a little offtopic for the Kaffe mailing list,
isn't it? I believe that comp.lang.java.advocacy is a
better place for C# and .NET hate rants.

> But please imagine all the the benefits a merge to
> mono would bring!
> I'll list all stuff that I can imagine:
> 
> 1.) More time to add new classes / Maybe we could
> make a 1:1 merge with
> GNU-Classpath (GNUCL.->Kaffe/Kaffe->GNUCl) so both
> project would profit.
> Kaffe would be able to use all those new classes
> which GNUCL. provides
> and GNUCl. would be able to include some missing
> classes from the old
> kaffe-Classpath!

You're clearly wrong on this one. Read the license of
kaffe. Read the license of Classpath. Come back when
you've found a legal way for Classpath to merge in
kaffe's code.

> Maybe this would let us the time to finitely ake a
> SWING-Replacement!

Go ahead, GNU Classpath includes some stubs already.
If you want to have "us" re-implement Swing, you go
first.  Build it and they will come. That's how free
software developement works, in my experience. Words
are cheap, visions ("Follow me, you fools! I've seen
the light! We only need to build ... and we'll all be
living happily therafter") are a dime a dozen, but
real code is as rare as gold.

> 2.) The Java-Part would  benefit of all
> optimisations that will be done
> on the mono-platform!

That's hypothetical.

> I think mono will be much more optimized than its
> now, because it simply
> will be the only way to run .NET-Apps (and
> ASP.NET!!!) under Linux and
> it has the power to fill this whole! (Instead of
> wine!)

I think you're a little speculative here.

> As I've heard some time ago mono is now about 15%
> faster that Kaffe...

I'm very impressed that kaffe isn't slower, when
running MSIL code. I'm impressed that it's running
MSIL code at all, as it is a virtual machine for
*java*, not for *c#*. 

Yes, I'm deliberately trying to misunderstand you.
You're throwing heresay numbers around that can't be
verified by anyone. Get your act together, you're on a
public mailing list ;)

> 3.) I dont think that Kaffe will be very sucessful
> in the way like its
> now used and developed... It will be only used by
> GNU-Masochists and in
> embedded machines. Not a great future...

Would you prefer a future wher GNU-Sadists use it to
embed machines in GNU-Masochists, then? But hey, I
don't really want to know your sexual fantasies ;)

Kaffe is being used and developed. That is successful
enough in my opinion. I don't have omnipotency
fantasies, thank you very much for asking. I doubt
anyone else involved in the development of kaffe (and
that could be you, yes you, if you contributed some
code instead of bitching) has such fantasies.

> But with the integration into mono, it would be able
> to run kaffe-code
> on every mono-platform (and you'll see, mono will
> grow, I'm sure!).

Miguel is a nice guy, and I hope Mono is sucessful.
I've got no idea what "kaffe-code" is, though. Or
"mono-platforms", for that matter.
 
> 4.) Everybody will benefit on JIT optimisations!
> If a kaffe-developer is able to make the mono-jit
> faster, it will be
> useful for all other mono-languages too!

Why? Hasn't the concept of language specific
optimisations ever occured to you?

If I'd optimise the mono jit (I don't know if there is
one, so that is very unlikely to happen ;) to make
virtual method dispatch slightly faster, that wouldn't
help Prolog# (if there is such a project at all) on
mono. It may even make it slower, because the jit
could now spend more time analyzing the code for
features that are not used.

> 5.)Marketing

Who cares?

> .NET is in, Java is out.
> You know, thats completly nonsense, but it seems
> that many users (and
> even developers!) think like this.
> Some of them use C#, because they think .NET will
> become the new
> standard. But if we would be able to provide them a
> useable and fast
> java-implementation (swing is really needed!!), I'm
> sure they'll soon
> notice that it is also .NET and so much nicer and
> much less dependent on
> MS-Code!

As far as I know, Mono doesn't depend on any MS code.

There already are fast & useable java implementations.
Some of them even include Swing. Yes, I'm talking
about Sun's or IBM's virtual machines. And guess what?
Sun's Swing for Java 1.1 runs very well on kaffe. It
did so for years.
 
> 
> About me:
> "Somebody must be really stupid, to write such stuff
> in
> Tannenbaum-style" ;-)
> O.K, I understand everybody who thinks like this.
> I'm very provokativ, I know, sorry...

I think your post is a little naive.

If you belive that people think you're stupid because
of your writing style, and that bothers you, than
change the writing style.

> In reality, I'm very interrested in helping Java on
> Linux! Its still not
> accepted by linux developers, although it would
> decrase security-holes,
> bugs and much development-time!

Obviously, if you think that kaffe is obsolete and a
waste of time, you're not going to be of much help
here, are you? 

You may want to try submitting patches for gcj, Mono,
or GNU Classpath. Or forking your own version of kaffe
and merging it with Mono. Do as you please as long as
you obey the license. Or you may do something entirely
different. It's up to you, it's your life, after all.

> Please feel free to tell me, what you think ybout my
> idea!
> Even If you can only tell me contras ;-)

Well, your whole post reads like you've had a very,
very exciting day. I hope you've recovered by now.

Let me summarize your post the way I understood it:
"You suck. Kaffe sucks. Gcj rulez. .NET sucks. Mono
will 0wn y4 bi7ch3z. Merge everything. Oh look over
there, what is this shiny thing ... One day this, one
day that. And there will be optimizations for
everybody. People think I suck. Do I suck? Let me be
your leader."

I'm sorry if this was a little harsh on you, but I
don't appreciate people hiding behind screen names
telling me what to do with my own time.

Of course, you're welcome to contribute to improve
kaffe anytime you change your mind about it.

best regards,
dalibor topic

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