Using an IDE to work on the Java library

[Mario Torre]

2017-11-22 14:04 GMT+01:00 Andrew Haley <aph at redhat.com>:
> On 22/11/17 11:52, Mario Torre wrote:
>> Now, I need to try this, but if I remember correctly, if you
>> configured the "Sources" for this custom JDK in the "Java Platform"
>> sources tab (again, not as a Java JDK project, but linked in the
>> properties of the JDK itself), Netbeans allows you to edit the files
>> that it opens (at least, it used to), you can point to the root
>> directory and NetBeans should be clever enough to figure out the
>> files.
>
> That doesn't work for me.
>
>> If instead you go with the creation of a JDK as a project (like it was
>> suggested here before), consider that you don't need to necessarily
>> add all the sources for all the projects, just the ones you are
>> interested in, for instance, the AOT/Graal code and the Java base, or
>> such, you don't need it all.
>>
>> I'll try later with a fresh clone of everything if I'm anywhere
>> successful to use a project with Netbeans using the project
>> definitions in the JDK, maybe I can help fixing those projects files.
>
> Sure, that would be good.
>
> The really weird thing is that everyone seems to be re-inventing this
> process, which really should Just Work.  Everybody working on the JDK
> must have the same set of problems.

I think the problem is that project files tend to be per OpenJDK
release which takes (or took!) years between updates, while IDE move
faster, sometime resulting in incompatible changes in the project
structure across releases, so one project structure may work only on
some version of any given IDE.

This is also complicated by the fact that the actual build is make
based, most of those tools don't understand that so they don't really
create an actual usable build of the JDK, they can only reference
code.

I think everything is getting more or less stable lately also on IDE
space regarding project layout and descriptors, so there probably
should only be one way to do this all, I don't think we will be able
to do all in the IDEs though.

Cheers,
Mario
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