Windows/Zero

[Julian Waters]

Hi Kim,

See my reply to Thomas. I understand that there's not much interest in
the work now. The only open question I have is how Zero on other
platforms has been functioning with zero (Heh) sized register arrays
with code that accesses the contents of those arrays also present as
well, but I guess that's a discussion for later. Maybe it needs
looking into, maybe it's fine.

Thanks for your time.

best regards,
Julian

On Thu, Apr 24, 2025 at 10:59 PM Kim Barrett <kim.barrett at oracle.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/22/25 8:46 AM, Julian Waters wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Zero currently cannot compile on Windows, and to my knowledge, has
> > never been able to compile on Windows. [...]
> >
> > I started work again recently to get Zero working with VC. [...]
> >
> > I'd like to float the idea of supporting Windows/Zero properly.
> > [...]
> >
> >
> > Thoughts?
>
> Quoting from https://openjdk.org/jeps/479 "Remove the Windows 32-bit x86 Port":
>
> "Windows 10, the last Windows operating system to support 32-bit operation,
> will reach End of Life in October 2025."
>
> That suggests the community of 32-bit Windows users is very small, and will
> only get smaller.  The delivery of that JEP and the fact that zero has never
> worked on Windows at all suggests the community of 32-bit Windows users with
> new development needs is essentially nonexistent.
>
> So providing a way to run new versions of Java on 32-bit Windows doesn't seem
> to me to be at all motivating.
>
> A port needs an active community to be considered alive and supported.  I
> don't see that here.  All I see is potential costs, with no demonstrated gain.
>
> I don't think "Ideally, Zero should run on any platform, so it not running on
> Windows would be surprising" is a good reason.  I think the purpose of zero is
> to provide a stepping stone toward support for a new platform where none
> currently exists.  That's not what we have here.
>
> The addition of zero-specific conditionalization in shared code in this work
> seems quite suspicious, given that zero currently works for non-Windows.
>
> Sorry to be raining on your parade, but this doesn't seem useful to me.
>