[Aegisvm-devel] 0.1.0 will be out soon

[Philip F. <pw...@us...>]

Hi

After an unexpectedly long period of struggle, the Aegis VM can finally
make use of the java.io package from the GNU classpath library.  We
end up needing to implement float/double arithmatic, reflection, and
jsr/ret instructions just to make it possible to print a string 
to System.out.  This means that everything I want to be in release 0.1.0
is more or less in place.  What is left is really just cleaning up the
code, which means release 0.1.0 will be out soon.

This release will depend on even more external libraries.  For example,
libjpr will now depend on libltdl (comes with libtool), and aegisvm
will depend on GNU classpath, which is relatively more complex to 
configure and compile than many of the software packages you
have worked with.

Given these concerns, I think for now it is better for you guys
to concentrate on learning to setup the build environment rather
than writing code.  There are a number of exercises I would like
you to complete:

Exercise #1
===========

  Try to compile and install libjpr-0.0.3 and aegisvm-0.0.3.
  Look at the .java files under the testsuite subdirectory
  to see what aegisvm 0.0.3 is capable of (also consult the
  FEATURES file).  You will notice that it does not even
  have java.io.  Instead it makes use of a class called
  aegis.Echo to print out testing output.  Now, try to
  write up a Java program that could be run on aegisvm 0.0.3.
  It does not need to be complicated (e.g. just do some
  trivial computation and then print out the result).
  You will notice that Sun's javac does not know where to
  locate aegis.Echo.  You need to set up the classpath
  properly for javac to be able to compile your program.
  Try using your installed aegisvm to execute the code.
  When you make sure that you know how to do this, uninstall
  aegisvm 0.0.3 and libjpr 0.0.3.

Exercise #2
===========

Use anonymous cvs to check out the modules JPR and AegisVM
from the project repository.  Make sure you check out
the versions tagged at release-aegisvm-0_1_0_pre1 and
release-aegisvm-0_1_0_pre1.

Look at the HACKING file.  Install ALL the tools mentioned
in the file.  Make sure you try as much as possible to 
install a tool using the native package manager.  For
example, autoconf/automake/libtool/libffi are all available
in Mandrake 8.2.  Avoid downloading source tarball and
compile a package if possible.  Make sure the right
version is invoked when you activate a tool.

Then compile the cvs working copy of JPR and AegisVM.
You will need to bootstrap the configuration scripts
before you can configure.  Look at the HACKING file
that you checked out for instructions on how this
can be done.  Compile and install the built packages.

Now repeat the first exercise, and try to run your
Java program using this newly installed aegisvm.

When you are done, uninstall the packages.

Philip

--
Philip W. L. Fong            pw...@us...
The Aegis VM Project         http://aegisvm.sourceforge.net