Re: [gentoo-dev] JRE support - is it worth it?

[Chris Davies <c.davies@cdavies.org>]

* Dylan Carlson (absinthe@gentoo.org) wrote:
>  
> Yes, bytecode is bytecode, however, there are numerous reasons why 
> compiling from source makes sense for some packages, not least of which is 
> optional run-time dependencies that can be built in (or not) to the final 
> JAR.

OK, that may be a reason to build from source. Giving the user more choice is definitely a good idea.

> 
> Also, classes produced by Jikes are often smaller than what's produced by 
> Sun's javac.  Because of these reasons and others not listed here, 
> building from source is not only desireable, it will most definitely 
> remain a focus of how we do things.

So compile the binary portage uses with Jikes. There is no particular reason why binaries distributed must be those the developers distribute.  With a package like jedit that has no build time options, why waste machine time? It makes no sense to build it on every machine when the result is going to be much the same.

Perhaps I should also add that the JRE is helpful when installing in environments where disk space is at a premium, for example I recently built a Gentoo system on a 512MB flash card. Don't assume that everyone installing Gentoo is doing so on a machine with a real hard disk.

Thanks,
C.Davies

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