> If the discussed proposal is used, this will be the only way to do it. > > -> A 'ant environment', which will use jikes as a compiler, will set > the ANT_BUILD_COMPILER to jikes and ant will use jikes as a compiler.
What if I don't want to use ant? The current jikes-* wrappers let me drop in jikes-* for javac, giving me the jikes compiler in combination with an appropriate set of bootstrap classes. This is necessary because jikes does not come with bootstrap classes of its own. I personally use small command-line java compiles (e.g., single runs of javac) for small programs, small tests, etc. This is what the jikes wrappers allow people to do. Ant is not the tool for every situation, and not everybody uses it. IMHO it will be quite disappointing if we cannot continue to support such simple things as basic command-line java compilation. (This last paragraph is in some part directed at the current java policy discussions as well, which seem to be very ant-centric). Ben. :)
