Question regarding Crazy Ideas List

[Tomaž Vajngerl]

On Thu, Oct 20, 2022 at 2:33 PM Siddharth Khattar <skhattar111 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello,
> So I was going through the crazy ideas list for LibreOffice at
> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Crazy_Ideas .
>

Crazy Idea page was first created as a dump of some crazy ideas that the
enthusiastic developers had after LibreOffice was forked (this is why many
ideas are 10+ years old), but has since then evolved into a place where
everyone (but the developers) write their crazy ideas in - so keep that in
mind.

Also they don't mean anything - probably none of them will ever be
implemented.


> When I came to the idea "AOT Compilation for Java Libraries used by
> LibreOffice" , there was this line as the first disadvantage ->
> "Feasibility: Is it even possible to use AOT compiled Java Libraries in a
> C++ compiled executable? Couldn't find a definite answer. "
>
> What does this line mean?
>

Looks like the crazy idea is just by some user thinking aloud.

Can't AOT compilation be used for all Java Libraries?
>

Who knows, probably it's possible with a lot of work but don't think
anybody was looking into that.

Also, does LibreOffice use Java Libraries to further compile their
> functions into C++ executable?
>

No.


> I don't understand what it meant to say at all to be honest.
>

You're free to ignore that - it's not like the crazy ideas page has any
meaning.


> Also, the last disadvantage -> "May reduce motivation to move from Java
> entirely"
>
> Why does LibreOffice want to move on from Java?
>

We want to move away from Java for core stuff as it would require for every
user to have a JVM installed (only Base currently requires a JVM).

We also want to move away from Java during the building of LibreOffice, for
example running tests written in Java, because C++ tests are easier for
most to debug if something goes wrong (as most of core developers are C++
developers).

But we don't want to get rid of Java as a language you can build
LibreOffice extensions in.


> Will it depend entirely on C++ instead then?
>

No, there is still Python that is used for some things (AFAIK) and
StarBasic.

>
> Is this also a crazy/ambitious idea?
>

Not that crazy.


> Is it somewhat related to the "Replace Mozilla Rhino with Mozilla's
> SpiderMonkey or Google's V8" idea as it also wants to remove Java as a
> dependency for executing JavaScript extensions?
>

Well not directly. Rhino JS support isn't the best or fastest, so replacing
that with an up-to-date C++ compatible JS engine that is actually used in a
browser would be much better.

Also no need to have a JVM installed to run JS would make it a much more
interesting language as an alternative scripting language for macros and
extensions.


> Or is that a completely seperate idea?
>

Yes.. and is just a crazy idea.


> Thanks for reading/answering my long question!
>

 Regards, Tomaž
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/attachments/20221021/e719081c/attachment.htm>