[kaffe] generic collections

[Matthias Pfisterer]

Dalibor Topic wrote:
> 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 ;)

Yea, I'm already wondering: are you working 24 hours a day for kaffe?

>> 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].

Well, in general you're right. There is a early access version of the 
JDK 1.5.0 (from java.sun.com) without docs. In the case of generics, the 
  list of affected classes in the collection and reflection APIs has 
long been published as part of the public review draft of JSR-14 
(http://jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/review/jsr014/index.html). 
The license allows "internal review", but one could arguement that part 
of an internal review is to check how easy the specification can be 
implemented by doing some actual coding, as long as the result is not 
officially released. BTW, the first official beta of the JDK 1.5.0 is 
expected for end of february.

>> 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.

Yes, I just found a bug in kjc's generics support! On the other hand, it 
is basically working, while I had no success with gcj and jikes.

> 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 ;)

I agree that we have to make sure the tool chain supports generics. But 
we won't find out and improve the tools without playing with generics. 
The kjc bug mentioned above is an example of this: I wrote a simple list 
class to test the generics support and zong! encountered a bug. So I 
think we have to start implementing generics to get the tools right.

>> 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.

Ok, I'll do that.

Matthias

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Matthias Pfisterer	<mailto:Matthias.Pfisterer at web.de>
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