Re: [Fwd: [Fwd: Re: [Cp-tools-discuss] shape of the CVS]]

[Nic Ferrier]

Julian Scheid <address@hidden> writes:

> JS wrote: 
>  
>  > In my opinion the cleanest way to package a Java app is to put 
>  > it into one jar file with an appropriate Manifest so that you 
>  > can do a  "java -jar /somewhere/someapp.jar". 
>  
> I'd find it cool if you could do a 
>  
>    java -jar /someplace/gjdoc.jar -doclet some.Doclet foo.MyClass 
>  
> And perhaps abbreviate this, using a shell script, to 
>  
>    gjdoc -doclet some.Doclet foo.MyClass 
>  
> What do you think? 

Yes. That would be useful if you subscribe to the view that a jar
file is an executable.

But it isn't - it's a library, possibly with a symbol table (eg:
manifest) which describes what the entry class/method is.

I think the best thing is if users learn that jars are libs and have
a well known place to put them (I put mine in /usr/local/share/java).

It would be quite useful if you could define an extpath on the command
line for most tools:

   java -extdir /usr/local/share/java:/usr/share/java ...

and if you could combine -classpath -extdir and -jar:

   java -extdir /usr/local/share/java -jar gjdoc.jar -doclet ...


I think this is the direction we're headed. Sun seem to have vacated
this space to a certain extent, they're more interested in persuing
their barmy enterprise stuff than the nitty gritty details of this
sort of thing.

I think they envision most java classes running inside an enterprise
container within the next couple of years.

Here at the GNU project GCJ is making us all think rather differently
(I think).



Nic