Subject: Re: [bug#53765] [PATCH 09/17] gnu: Add clojure-tools-analyzer-jvm.

From: Reily Siegel <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2022 14:18:59 -0500

Maxime Devos <[email-masked]> writes:

> Compiling to Java bytecode does not imply the JVM -- for example,
> GCJ can compile Java bytecode to native code, according to
> <https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GCJ_FAQ>.  There is no JVM involved in this
> situation.
Yes. However, here "Java Bytecode" has nothing to do with the Java
programming language. It could have been produced by any programming
language that executes on the JVM. The Java, as well as Clojure
compilers produce bytecode that is designed to run on the Java Virtual
Machine. The fact that other programs can analyze that bytecode and do
something else with it doesn't seem super relevant to me. We wouldn't
call x86 assembly "C bytecode" because you could theoretically run it in
an emulator and not on an x86 processor. I really don't think this is
worth a huge debate, but my concern is that changing this to Java
implies that it only works with the Java programming language, and not
any other programming language or tool that respects JVM bytecode, of
which there are several (Scala, Groovy, Kotlin, etc.).

-- 
Reily Siegel