[aarch64-port-dev ] [11u] RFR 8228400: Remove built-in AArch64 simulator

[Andrew Haley]

On 7/31/19 7:32 PM, Aleksey Shipilev wrote:

> I thought we would remove it in 8u-aarch64, in preparation for
> eventual upstreaming. It that case, it makes sense to have all
> releases share the same code shape to simplify future backporting.
> Simulator is already removed in 14, and assuming we are doing it in
> 8u-aarch64, 11u would be the only release left with the built-in
> simulator.

I see. So, your proposal to do this in order to minimize the size of
the aarch64 patch to be imported into 8u? I didn't remove the builtin
sim when the AArch64 port was contributed to mainline because it
seemed to me to be a pointless change, and it still does. It's not
simply laziness, I considered doing this and rejected it. I don't
think it aids maintainability.

In general, I don't think that source code cleanups should be done to
old releases; apart from anything else it messes up the diffs. We
don't fix whitespace in old code for the same reason.

However, there is a point I accept: one could argue that in a sense
the 8u backport is "new", so perhaps a cleanup is justified for that
reason.

-- 
Andrew Haley  (he/him)
Java Platform Lead Engineer
Red Hat UK Ltd. <https://www.redhat.com>
https://keybase.io/andrewhaley
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