Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 02 Jan 2001 09:48:15 -0800
From:      Cedric Berger <cedric@wireless-networks.com>
To:        FreeBSD Java mailing list <freebsd-java@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Java ports
Message-ID:  <3A52145F.5092DD41@wireless-networks.com>
References:  <20010102122359.A786@c187104187.telekabel.chello.nl>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> Oh, and IMO, a .jar file is definitely a binary distro, it's *not* half-way
> between source and binary, it's simply a binary.

I've said it's half-way source/binary for the following reasons:

1) James Gosling said that he designed the java bytecode to match
the often stack/tree-based intermediate representation you find 
between the front-end and the back-end of a compiler toolchain.

2) With any of the free java decompiler available, you can very very
accurately recreate the full source code of any non-obfuscated jar file.
You don't get the comments, but you have *everything* else. Boy, that's
useful when, like me, you sometimes lose your sources. So "paranoid"
sysadmins like Joshua can review the code. BTW a think the code should
always be shipped along with the jar file.

3) You can patch it easily with jardiff or any basic zip tool.

Cedric


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-java" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?3A52145F.5092DD41>