hg: build-infra/jdk8: 2 new changesets

[Magnus Ihse Bursie]

On 2012-05-23 10:35, Magnus Ihse Bursie wrote:
>
> I'd be the first to admit that this terminolgy sucks bigtime. However, 
> it is build-in in configure, and is generally accepted in the 
> community. So we only have two choices, neither of which is good:
> 1) Accept this terminology
> 2) Chose another terminology
>
> Selecting path 2) means not being able to use configure to help with 
> cross-compilation. And even if we hand-hacked configure to behave 
> differently, it would be confusing to everyone who has used configure 
> before and have learnt that "host" means "target" and "target" should 
> not be used.
>
> So we chose path 1), and will therefore have to educate OpenJDK 
> developers instead. Of course, this choice can be discussed. If you or 
> anyone else have suggestions, we're all open ears!

Actually, when I think about it, it really sucks. We shouldn't have 
confusing names just because some old GNU project started it. :-&

I just made a simple hack that "tames" autoconf, basically equating 
--host and --target (so if you enter one of them you get the other one 
set to the same value). This means that you would be able to to 
"configure --target=foo" instead of "configure --host=foo", but 
configure will still work as intended. I think we should use this as the 
normal way to configure cross-compilation, and use the term "target" 
throughout the system to refer to the target platform when 
cross-compiling. That is, walk down path 2) instead.

Thank you John for pointing out exactly how bad an idea it is to use the 
ambiguous word "host" when cross-compiling.

/Magnus