JEP proposal: "PowerPC/AIX Port"

[Alan Bateman]

On 16/01/2013 14:53, Volker Simonis wrote:
> :
> Actually I don't exactly remember the approach taken for the Mac port and I'll
> be happy for any experiences you could share with us. But of course the
> port integration will not happen in one big change.
One thing to say about the Mac port is that it ended up being 
date/release driven with the result that refactoring that probably 
should have been done was not done (and it's always hard to address 
technical debt later).

On reflection I think we should have had more discussion about the jdk 
repository and the purpose of the src/solaris tree in particular. With 
the Mac port we have ended up with some Mac specific sources in 
src/macosx and some in src/solaris, plus lots of code in src/solaris 
with ugly ifdef <platform>. My personal view, is that we should rename 
src/solaris to something like src/nix and move all Solaris, Linux and 
Mac sources to their own tree. Furthermore, with the new configure-based 
build then it opens up the possibility of compiling based on 
capabilities rather than platform and I think we should be thinking 
through how we move in that direction (it will take a long time).

Anyway, I just mention these things because adding the AIX port will 
probably highlight concerns about the jdk/src/solaris tree again. I 
haven't worked in the hotspot repository for a long time but it is in a 
much better position to take on new ports and architectures, although 
there is a risk of some code duplication.

> :
> We don't expect to get into the first jdk8 release but we hope to make it
> into the first regular jdk8 update (i.e. jdk8u2 or however it will called).
>
>
Thanks, that's useful to know as it would be scary to try to bring this 
when jdk8 is being stabilized.

-Alan