FW: Announcing Finalists for the OpenJDK Community Innovator's Challenge

[Ted Neward]

Hey, Stephen--

Yes, I'd thought to include Hotspot as well, since that's where most of the
C/C++ coding was happening, AFAIK. Recognizing that this will likely touch
the Hotspot code in some way, I was going to touch base with the Hotspot
team (via the hotspot-* lists) when I had a working build going using
VC++Express. (Figured there probably wasn't much to coordinate with them
until then.)

Any and all resources you can offer regarding your VC2005Express effort
would be HUGELY appreciated. Tim's already mentioned that he's been working
on getting the ".exe manifest" bug nailed down, which will obviously need to
happen for all the .exe's and .dll's in the JDK, and anything else you've
run into will help lay out the scope of the problem, too.

Once I get the thing flipped to VC++Express, then I'll start thinking about
getting mingw's toolchain in place, including flipping the NMakefiles over
to GNU makefiles. Again, I'm guessing the Hotspot team will have something
to say about that, but the goal there would be to make it easier to maintain
the makefiles across platforms. (MinGW over Cygwin simply because it--I
think--handles the path weirdness better than Cygwin does.)

Once the MinGW toolchain is in place, then it comes time to think about
flipping from VC++Express to gcc, which is, I think, a vastly different set
of problems.

As for perf differences between the compilers, well, that's partly why I'm
going to do this in separate repositories, so that if it turns out that
MinGW's gcc is four times slower than VC++, we call the experiment "done"
and move on. :-) But AFAIK, the compiler coming in VC++Express has all the
same optimizations as the one coming in Visual Studio, so I don't think
there will be a problem there. And, if in fact it *does* turn out to be the
case, then perhaps Sun continues to use the commercial compiler for product
builds, and the rest of us can use the free compiler and live with the
reduced perf. *shrug* That's for other minds to decide. I just know that
enough people asked about using the free C++ compilers on Windows that I
figured it was worth a shot.

Ted Neward
Java, .NET, XML Services
Consulting, Teaching, Speaking, Writing
http://www.tedneward.com
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephen.Bohne at Sun.COM [mailto:Stephen.Bohne at Sun.COM]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 7:42 AM
> To: Ted Neward
> Cc: build-dev at openjdk.java.net
> Subject: Re: FW: Announcing Finalists for the OpenJDK Community
> Innovator's Challenge
> 
> Hi Ted,
> 
> Congratulations on getting accepted.  Are you planning to include the
> Hotspot repository in this project?  Some time ago, I was involved with
> a similar effort to build Hotspot under Visual C++ 2005 Express, so I'm
> familiar with some of this.  Most of the immediate build issues were
> simple syntax problems.  So the Hotspot repository should be pretty
> easy, with respect to source changes, at least for VC 2008.
> 
> For MinGW32, one issue might be that the current Hotspot/Windows
> makefiles are mostly nmake format.  We still use that format because it
> provides an easy capability for so-called "batch" compiles, which makes
> Windows Hotspot builds extremely fast.  It would be nice to have
> something equivalent if a new Makefile format is used.
> 
> Another thing to watch out for with Hotspot is performance.  Some of
> the
> C++ subsystems, particularly GC, can be sensitive to the quality of the
> generated code.  In the past we've seen noticeable changes in benchmark
> scores from C++ compiler upgrades (thankfully, mostly positive
> changes.)
>   Just something to keep in mind, especially if the free version of VC
> 2008 or MinGW32 omits some optimizations that exists in the current
> compilers.
> 
> Finally, this isn't Hotspot related, but one other problem we had with
> the free VC 2005 compiler was lack of ATL support.  One of the other
> repositories had a dependency on ATL that wasn't satisfied by the
> Express compiler.  It may be the case that the dependency was removed
> since then, or that the 2008 product now includes the support.  Just
> something to be aware of.
> 
> Others on this list can probably comment better on non-Hotspot issues.
> 
> Steve
> 
> Ted Neward wrote:
> > Given that it would appear that my proposal for updating the build
> process
> > to use a free compiler has apparently been accepted (see below), is
> there a
> > good time to start thinking about doing the migration work? Are there
> any
> > major build changes up & coming? I know Kelly has said there's some
> plans to
> > move the corba project out to an entirely Ant-driven process, so if
> that's
> > going to happen any time soon, I'll just leave it out of the
> migration
> > process. (I think the corba stuff still uses the C compiler for some
> of it,
> > no?)
> >
> > There's a two-step process I want to take with this:
> > 1) Let's leave most of the build infrastructure in place and just try
> to
> > swap in Visual C++ 2008 Express.
> > 2) Let's see about moving over to MinGW32's infrastructure (instead
> of
> > Cygwin's) and see if that doesn't help reduce the path problems we're
> > currently facing in the Windows build of OpenJDK.
> > 2) Let's see about moving over to the MinGW32 gcc compiler for
> building on
> > windows, and thus remove the dependency on Microsoft's compiler
> completely,
> > in case VC++ ever moves out of a free (as in beer or as in speech)
> SKU.
> >
> > My goal is to ensure that I hit #1 by the close of the project period
> > (August), and get as far down 2 and 3 as possible.
> >
> > Any thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas for how best to tackle this? You
> (the guys
> > at Sun) have a lot more experience with this codebase than I, so any
> tips,
> > pointers or suggestions are appreciated.
> >
> > Ted Neward
> > Java, .NET, XML Services
> > Consulting, Teaching, Speaking, Writing
> > http://www.tedneward.com
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: announce-bounces at openjdk.java.net [mailto:announce-
> >> bounces at openjdk.java.net] On Behalf Of Rich Sands
> >> Sent: Monday, March 17, 2008 6:54 PM
> >> To: announce at openjdk.java.net; challenge-discuss at openjdk.java.net
> >> Subject: Announcing Finalists for the OpenJDK Community Innovator's
> >> Challenge
> >>
> >> OpenJDK Community,
> >>
> >> We're pleased to announce the finalists for the OpenJDK Community
> >> Innovator's
> >> Challenge. The judges have been meeting and discussing the 18
> proposals
> >> received
> >> during the first phase of the Challenge, and evaluating these
> proposals
> >> based on
> >> their technical merit, and their likely impact on the OpenJDK
> Community
> >> and the
> >> adoption of OpenJDK-based implementations in new markets, for new
> >> applications and
> >> uses. It was not an easy decision, as most of the proposals were
> >> thoughtful and
> >> demonstrated passion and commitment to this code base and the
> >> community. The seven
> >> Finalists, in order of receipt of their proposals, are:
> >>
> >>
> >> Closures for Java                                    Neal Gafter
> >>
> >> Implement XRender pipeline for Java2D                Clemens
> Eisserer
> >>
> >> Provide date and time library from JSR-310           Stephen
> >> Colebourne,
> >>                                                       Michael
> >> Nascimento Santos
> >>
> >> Portable GUI backends                                Roman Kennke,
> >> Mario Torre
> >>
> >> Virtual Machine Interface                            Andrew John
> Hughes
> >>
> >> Free Software synthesizer implemention for
> >> the OpenJDK project                                  Karl Helgason
> >>
> >> OpenJDK on Windows                                   Ted Neward
> >>
> >>
> >> The judges, all Sun employees, are Alan Bateman, Alex Buckley, Danny
> >> Coward, Joe
> >> Darcy, Ray Gans, James Gosling, Onno Kluyt, Jim Melvin, Alex
> Potochkin,
> >> Phil Race,
> >> Mark Reinhold, and Rich Sands.
> >>
> >> We want to thank everyone who has entered their proposal into the
> >> Challenge. It is
> >> very exciting to see the level of enthusiasm and interest among
> >> developers for the
> >> OpenJDK code base. The finalists were chosen based on the
> completeness
> >> and relevance
> >> of their proposals and the degree to which the judges felt the end
> >> results were both
> >> achievable and valuable to the community at this time. Proposals
> that
> >> were not
> >> selected as finalists are still valuable and interesting but Sun
> could
> >> not select
> >> them all! The judges hope that everyone who has participated so far
> in
> >> the Challenge
> >> will consider continuing their efforts in the Community, and
> >> collaborating with their
> >> peers and with Sun to further the goals of the OpenJDK project.
> >>
> >> One other thing to remember -- there is no guarantee that completed
> >> Challenge
> >> projects will be integrated into the main OpenJDK code base, or into
> >> the Java SE
> >> Platform specification (which is governed by the JCP). Being chosen
> as
> >> a Finalist or
> >> completing a project for the Challenge might help to demonstrate the
> >> feasibility of a
> >> particular API or language proposal but it does not say anything
> about
> >> the likelihood
> >> of such a project becoming an approved JSR, or about the code being
> >> integrated into
> >> the main branch of the OpenJDK code base. Both the spec and the code
> >> are managed
> >> under processes that are separate from the Challenge.
> >>
> >> The finalists will be notified and project space set up for them if
> >> needed in the
> >> OpenJDK Community. As required by the Challenge rules, work must be
> >> done in the open,
> >> and the entire OpenJDK community is welcome to watch and comment as
> the
> >> projects
> >> progress. The Innovators Challenge will close on August 4th at which
> >> time each
> >> project will be reviewed to verify that it met the completion
> criteria
> >> of its
> >> proposal. Cash prizes will be awarded shortly afterwards.
> >>
> >> Thanks again to everyone who has participated. Good luck to all
> >> Finalists on your
> >> projects!
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >>      --  rms
> >>
> >> --
> >> Rich Sands                     Phone: +1 781 881 4067 / x81524
> >> Community Marketing Manager    Email: richard.sands at sun.com
> >> Java SE Marketing              SMS: 6172830027 at vtext.com
> >> Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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