development update

It's been a while since anything has happened on this list, so it's
about time that I send out an update.

JSwat development has gotten significantly easier of late. I have begun
using JDEE (http://jdee.sunsite.dk/) with GNU emacs to automate certain
development tasks. This includes using CheckStyle
(http://checkstyle.sourceforge.net/) to verify conformance to the Java
coding standards. Along the same vien, I installed support files for
using JCSC (http://jcsc.sourceforge.net/), another standards checker
that also identifies possible coding problems (like jlint but better).

Additionally, Jakarta Ant (http://jakarta.apache.org/ant/) is now used
exclusively for compiling, running, and testing JSwat. No more setting
of environment variables and running of Perl scripts. It is also not
necessary to tweak the JDK installation just to compile and run JSwat.
What's more, there are Ant build files for generating the Java parser
(which uses SableCC -- http://www.sablecc.org/), running JCSC, and
running the JUnit test cases.

Speaking of JUnit, much of JSwat's functionality is now tested with
JUnit test cases. There are still plenty of test cases to write (for the
actions and breakpoints), but the majority of the functionality is being
exercised. The test cases are located in test/junit/classes in the JSwat
source. The tests run successfully on GNU/Linux, Windows 2000/XP,
Solaris 2.8, and MacOS X, all using the latest 1.4 JDK.

Over the last several months I have gently massaged the developer
documentation to include as much information as I feel is pertinent to
JSwat development. If you are interested, take a look at the files in
docs/dev in the JSwat source.

n