[kaffe] generic collections

[Dalibor Topic]

Hallo Matthias,

Matthias Pfisterer wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I asked this before, but perhaps it was burried to deep into another mail:

Sorry I didn't have time to reply earlier, I was buried in a maze of 
build system problems ;)

> how and when will kaffe handle the transition to a version of the 
> collection framework that uses generics?

I don't believe that there is much we can do before the JDK 1.5 API 
specs are really released.

We can only guess what will be in the JDK 1.5 APIs at the time being [1].

> I noticed that kjc can already handle generics. However, the propably 
> bigger problem might be the collection framework.

I don't know how well kjc supports generics in the form in which they 
are supposed to be used in JDK 1.5. I also don't know if there is any 
development on jikes to support new java language constructs from 1.5. 
As far as I know, there is some work going on in the gcj camp to support 
those features in the future.

So the first problem, once 1.5 is out, and it becomes clear what the 
specs demand, will be to make sure the build tools can cope with it. 
Then we can move on further to actually implement the spec ;)

> Perhapt I would volunteer for the task of recoding the collection 
> framework.

That would be great!

Check out the Classpath web pages for requirements, and get your 
paperwork done with the FSF to contribute the code to GNU Classpath. 
Then all free runtimes (not just kaffe) can profit from your work on 
reimplementing the collections framework.

cheers,
dalibor topic

[1] And if you've downloaded the beta from javalobby.org, you're not 
allowed to tell us anyway according to the license. Beside, rumour on 
javalobby.org has it it has no javadocs anyway, and I definitely don't 
want people to look into Sun's sources to tell us, as it would prevent 
them from being able to contribute, etc.