http://haystack.lcs.mit.edu/

Hmm. Interesting. Will have to see how usable it is in the "Real World" (tm) versus the lab environment.

- Trevor

Wow, looks very promising. The only design principle they seem to be lacking is searchability. They have an "ask a question" dialog, but heaven only knows how it works. Given their AI bias, I wonder if it will feel like an Infocom game?

- when was my last dentist appointment?

I'm not sure. Why are you so concerned about your dentist?

512M minimum RAM, 1G "strongly recommended"? I guess we won't be seeing this on a PDA any time soon...

Plus (and this isn't a real problem, it's just something I'm playing with) it uses the Sun JDK, which, last I looked, will not bootstrap itself from source (you need a java compiler to compile the java compiler). Does anyone here know whether it's possible to compile the JDK using GCJ, which will bootstrap from source?

Peter

I never noticed the mem requirements ...

So are you compiling the JDK just as a curiosity or do you not like to install binaries? I've never tried to actually compile the JDK itself... Besides, shouldn't you be working on Pearl and not trying to compile Java VM's ?

As far as requiring the Sun JDK, I suspect it requires "JDK 1.4" (rather than specifically the Sun JDK) ... Which probably means it will run on OS X as well. I haven't checked to see if IBM has released a 1.4 version yet (I assume they probably have). Sun's the only one that you have a chance of seeing the source for though.

ms

So are you compiling the JDK just as a curiosity or do you not like to install binaries?

A bit of both: as a curiosity, I'm seeing whether I can get by without installing any binaries. Of course, this still leaves me vulnerable to trojans in the compiler binary on the distro I build the install CD on, but I think anyone who can slip such a trojan into GCC probably deserves to 0\/\/n all my boxes for sheer coolness factor.

Besides, shouldn't you be working on Pearl and not trying to compile Java VM's ?

In the office, yes. At home I can be as frivolously tinfoil-hatted about JVM trojans as I like...

Peter