More than one compiler

[Catalin CLIMOV]

Well, KDevelop can be used for developing Java apps, if you create a "custom
project" from the wizard and hack a little bit the ".kdevprj" file.
You may use mmake (www.tildeslash.com/mmake/) to generate makefile for java
projects.
However, the support for java projects in KDevelop is poor, that is, .java
files are viewed in "Header/Resource" tab (I think they should go to
"C/C++"("/Java") tab), there is no classview, no java documentation support.
You can only edit your java files, compile them via mmake generated makefile,
and run your java app. using a shell script.

Two weeks ago I tried to add Java support to KDevelop and after hacking
application wizard I realised that the job is not trivial at all. Though java
syntax is very close to the C/C++ syntax, there are a lot of differences:
- packages: java projects make intensive use of packages, while C++ namespaces
are rarely used
- nested & anonymous classes: very common in java (adapters & listeners in
delegation model), but no anonymous classes support in C++
- interfaces: very common in java, not found in C++
- there are no header files for java. Declarations and definitions of java
methods are the same
- access qualifiers for class members are member-oriented in Java, and not
section-oriented, as in C++
etc,
All these differeces may have a big impact on a Java IDE look'n'feel. That's
why maybe it would be easier to create an independent java IDE (KJDevelop :-))
based on KDevelop code and at some moment in future (when both of them will
reach some maturity) join the both IDEs in what would be called "KDevelop
Studio".
I would like to develop such an IDE, but ONLY if there are enough requests for
it, and if some (KDE) programmers will join me. I have a lot of experience
(2.5+ years) with java (since jdk 1.0.2) and C/C++, but not much experince with
KDE.

Catalin.

> > >Hi all. The new version 0.4 of Kdevelop is great.
> > >Is there a posibility to be supported more compilers (Pascal, Java e.t.)
> in
> > >KDevelop so it will become to "KDevelop Studio" :-)
> 
> Well, the basics of this are trivial, because KWrite already supports syntax
> highlighting for many other languages and just plugging in an outside
> compiler wouldn't be difficult at all.  I'm not familiar with Java
> makefiles, but I don't think even they would be too bad.  HOWEVER, all of
> the class browser stuff would need some work to parse Java files.  Still,
> there might be enough free stuff out there (does Kaffe have a javadoc tool?
> That should include a very simple Java parser), that I think it will surely
> happen someday.  I think that most people are pretty tied up on other parts,
> e.g. bugfixing, CVS integration, function database, intellisense, etc.  If a
> Java expert were to join the project, this could happen in no time at all.
> Until then, you can take a look at Freebuilder (www.freebuilder.org).  They
> got off to a good start, but the last version I saw didn't have a class
> browser.  And of course, Swing on Linux tends to be pretty memory hungry.  I
> also haven't seen an update in ages, so I don't know how active it is.
> Pascal is probably a little trickier, as it doesn't have Java's C-like
> structure.
> Good luck!
> --JZ