2014/09/09

DISCLAIMER: These notes are from the defunct k8 project which precedes SquirrelJME. The notes for SquirrelJME start on 2016/02/26! The k8 project was effectively a Java SE 8 operating system and as such all of the notes are in the context of that scope. That project is no longer my goal as SquirrelJME is the spiritual successor to it.

00:47

Ok, for the simplified compiler I need to keep things simple. Before I had very nice and powerful, but rather cumbersome beacon and unit locators. For compilation, the only thing that matters it the classpath. Any input source file along with other class files and source files in other directories are included. This could also include ZIP files and such. However lookup of objects is the same for all of them regardless. So all I need is handling of whatever a class path could be, either a real directory, a JAR, or maybe temporary stuff in memory possibly. If I keep that simple then lookup of objects remains simple. Then compilation of languages could be directly referenced. Java would be treated as normal while C would require pragmas to set class and package information, possibly even annotations and such. There is decoration so that C functions can call Java code and vice versa.

01:02

For loading actual objects I can do the BinaryClass and BinaryKBF stuff, implement those so they can be used by the compiler to get symbols and to make new binaries, and so it can be used by the kernel JIT. If I keep the JIT stuff in one place, I could at least write it once as it would all use a common intermediate interface anyway. Not sure of the intermediate language yet but maybe something CISC or VLIW like, but not overly complex. The byte code would need forward and backward referencing so that it could be recompiled better since the more information the better. Previously with my previous compiler I would have to had written everything twice, a fat one for userspace stuff and a newer lean for usage in the kernel. I could just write the lean one and use that for both, it would save considerable time.