FW: Sun revokes FreeBSD license for Java

[Ian G]

Joris Verschoor wrote:

> We've done some tests, and everything works, but the build process 
> takes ages and updates are slow.


Same here.

> + 5.0 is not ready, but we won't be doing 5.0 stuff yet, although we'd 
> love to use generics etc.


Just FYI, you don't need to wait for a 5.0 release to
use generics.  Generics as I understand them are
a compile time feature, and the current shipped
compilers can do the work.  There is some magic
trick you can employ to get it enabled.

I don't know specifically how it is done, but someone
in our shop slipped it into the compile phase in the
summer of 2002 and we have been using it on one
significant project ever since (on FreeBSD as well).
(If you're interested I'll chase up how it was done.
It's not a publishable technique, SUN again do not
permit it to be published.)

I'd say that doing so was a mixed bag;  one problem
I saw was that the code couldn't then be compiled
in anyone else's shop.  Also, once used extensively,
they do result in hard to read code, the pollution
aspect is not inconsiderable.

iang

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