Jikes is an
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
Java compiler
A Java compiler is a compiler for the Java programming language.
Some Java compilers output optimized machine code for a particular hardware/operating system combination, called a '' domain specific'' ''computer system''. An example would be the ...
written in
C++. It is no longer being updated.
The original version was developed by David L. "Dave" Shields and Philippe Charles at
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
but was quickly transformed into an
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
project contributed to by an active community of developers. Initially hosted by IBM, the project was later transferred to
SourceForge
SourceForge is a web service founded by Geoffrey B. Jeffery, Tim Perdue, and Drew Streib in November 1999. SourceForge provides a centralized software discovery platform, including an online platform for managing and hosting open-source soft ...
. Among its accomplishments, it was much faster in compiling small projects than
Sun's own compiler, and provided more helpful warnings and errors.
Project status
the project is no longer being actively developed. The last 1.22 version was released in October 2004 and partially supports
Java 5.0 (with respect to new classes, but not new language features).
As no further versions were released since,
Java SE 6
The Java (programming language), Java language has undergone several changes since Java Development Kit, JDK 1.0 as well as numerous additions of class (computer science), classes and packages to the standard library (computer science), libr ...
is not supported.
While the
free software community
The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedoms to run, study, modify, and share copies of software. Software which meets these requirements, ...
needed
free Java implementations
Free Java implementations are software projects that implement Oracle's Java technologies and are distributed under free software licences, making them free software. Sun released most of its Java source code as free software in May 2007, so it ...
, the
GNU Compiler for Java
The GNU Compiler for Java (GCJ) is a discontinued free compiler for the Java programming language. It was part of the GNU Compiler Collection.
GCJ compiles Java source code to Java virtual machine (JVM) bytecode or to machine code for a number ...
became the most commonly used compiler.
See also
*
Jikes RVM
Jikes Research Virtual Machine (Jikes RVM) is a mature virtual machine that runs programs written for the Java platform. Unlike most other Java virtual machines (JVMs), it is written in the programming language Java, in a style of implementation ...
References
External links
* {{sourceforge, jikes
Jikes Archives hosted by David Shields on
WordPress.com
Discontinued development tools
Free and open source compilers
Java compilers