Kawa on pre-Java5

[Per Bothner <per at bothner dot com>]

I've long had the goal supporting Kawa both making use of
newer features (Unicode functions in Java6) and also supporting
older versions of Java - even in theory going back to Java 1.
The primary tool has been a pre-processor (the PreProcess class).

However, using the pre-processor makes the source code ugly
because of conditional compilation and not making use of Java5
conveniences.  Plus, I'm not sure anyone is making use of Kawa
on older Javas - so there is little or no testing.

I've started using Java5 feature unconditionally in the source
code.  The goal is still that it be possible to run Kawa on
older JVMs, but you need to go through more steps.  First, you
need to use a Java5 (or newer) javac to build Kawa.  Then you
need to use a tool like retrotranslator, or retroweaver.

So my policy now is that I can unconditionally make use of
Java5 features that can be "down-translated" by these tools,
but should continue to use conditional compilation for other
Java5/Java6 features.

Any volunteers who can test if this works?  Do you have JDK 1.2,
1.3, 1.3, or some version of JavaME, and can see if it is possible
to build the current SVN version of Kawa on these VM?  If so,
please write up the needed steps, and I'll add that to the Kawa
manual.
--
	--Per Bothner
per@bothner.com   http://per.bothner.com/