Do you run with $OUTPUT/jdk (exploded classes, pre-images)?

[Alan Bateman]

I'm interested to get a sense for how many people run/debug with the 
intermediate build output that is $OUTPUT/jdk. That is, the developer 
build that has the class files on the file system rather than images 
(ie: no rt.jar, no tools.jar, everything in jdk/classes on the boot 
class path).

In the dark days of the old build then this was the modus operandi for 
many of us, partly because the images target took longer that a round 
trip to the coffee machine, partly because it could be combined with 
make -f to run specific make files for fast edit-build-debug.

The context for the question is modules where we need to figure some of 
the infrastructure/build changes to get us to the point where the source 
code is organized by module and where the build evolves to compile 
everything as modules. Draft JEPs coming on this soon and for now I'm 
just trying to get a feel for common it is to run with the intermediate 
output that is $OUTPUT/jdk and whether folks do anything more than run 
tests or just use it for debugging.

-Alan.