Re: [Paperclips-discuss] JSP Engine, GPL licensed

[Erwin Bolwidt]

On Wed, 2002-04-24 at 00:11, Nic Ferrier wrote:
> Erwin Bolwidt <address@hidden> writes:
> > I've been working on a JSP compiler for the past few months. It's based 
> > on KopiSusu - my Kopi-derived java compiler. I say a compiler, since it 
> > parses and compiles JSP pages directly to .class files, without writing 
> > any generated temporary java source code. This improves speed, error 
> > reporting, and hopefully also reliability. 
> 
> Sure. It would be nicer if you'd used Kawa. But it still sounds cool.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Kawa has a java compilation
module. It's important to have that, to compile scriptlets and
expressions, among others.

If you're talking about the byte code generator that's part of Kawa,
I've been thinking about that. Part of the work I've done on kopi susu
is to factor the byte code generation out of the java syntax tree (where
it was in kopi) so it can be maintained easier, and can be replaced as a
module by a different code generation backend. Creating a code generator
based on the gnu.bytecode package is one of the things I want to do when
the JSP compiler part is finished.

> > But it looks promising already; all the basic stuff is there (all the 
> > JSP syntax, taglibs, etc.) but wrapping the compiler in a servlet, 
> > recompiling exactly when the jsp file or one of its included parts 
> > changes, reading web.xml for taglib uri aliases, must still be done. 
> 
> I would be very interested in helping you do those bits.
> 
> In GNUJSP the bit that is most creaky and in most need of a
> substantial rewrite is the compiler. To be honest, I have to
> consciously stop myself thinking about how it might be improved
> because it's a big job and I don't have time to do it.
> 
> However, if you supply the compiler I think I can hack what is in
> the current JSP Engine CVS to supply all the other bits.
 
> How about it?
 
 
Thanks, then I can focus on finishing and cleaning up the compiler
parts. Give me a few days, then I can send you the compiler code. 
It may be easy if we can talk on the phone then so I can tell you which
parts are still being worked on etc so you won't get stuck because of
that.


> Nic
> 
> PS Do you still need the CVS module you've got at my site? (for
> kopisusu)

Currently, no. The current code is so different from last years' that it
would almost be a complete re-import anyway.

Also, unless someone convinces me that it's not worth the trouble, I
want to rewrite all the remaining kopi code so I can change the license
in the future; I want to make it LGPL so it can work together with JBoss
(LGPL to my knowledge) and other non-GPL open source J2EE software.

I don't know if that is something that some people consider "bad" (if
you do, I don't want to start a long thread here, you could e-mail me
privately), but it may be a reason to set up its own module at
sourceforge (or savannah if that still satisfies the FSF's requirements)

Erwin