Re: DataInputStream changes...

[Brian Jones]

"Etienne M. Gagnon" <address@hidden> writes:

> And, yes I agree, Autoconf/Automake do not fit well with Java (they work
> great for the native part, though).  In sablepath, I compile .java files
> using a "mmake" generated Makefile [+ jikes], but it is not ideal, as
> classes are recompiled over and over, even if you changed a single
> file.  I have just learned lately about Apache's "jakarta-ant".  It is a
> configure/make utility that works very well with Java.  Quite easy to
> learn, too.  The problem is: it is written in Java, so we have a
> bootstrapping problem.  This is not entirely true, as the initial
> compilation could be simply done using a shell script.  I might very
> well use it for Sablepath.

I have looked at ant recently and continue to do so both for this
project and for work.  I'm not convinced that they have a magic bullet
which makes compiling Java easier.  The task of defining dependencies
is still up to the developer as it is with make.  There is again no
automated method of dealing with that other than the expectation of
using a decent compiler to do it for you.  Ant promises to make life
easier by letting you get away from Makefiles... like a Makefile is
some evil thing.  Classpath is relatively simple to compile compared
to what I deal with at work.  Ant appears to make insrumenting code
after compilation, autogenerating code from meta languages, etc. all
more difficult and a "custom" part of an Ant build process.  I have
not seen a sufficiently difficult build process use Ant yet.  I'll
keep looking of course... I'm just not sure what the hype is about.

Brian