Jikes(TM) is a compiler that translates Java(TM) source files as
defined in "The Java Language Specification" into the byte code
instruction set and binary format defined in "The Java Virtual Machine
Specification."

You may wonder why the world needs another Java compiler, considering
that Sun provides javac free with its SDK. Jikes has four advantages
that make it a valuable contribution to the Java community:

* Open source. Jikes is OSI Certified Open Source Software. OSI
Certified is a certification mark of the Open Source Initiative.

* Strictly Java compatible. Jikes strives to adhere to both "The
Java Language Specification" and "The Java Virtual Machine
Specification" as tightly as possible and does not support
subsets, supersets, or other variations of the language. The FAQ
describes some of the side effects of this strict language
conformance.

* High performance. Jikes is a high performance compiler, making it
ideal for use with larger projects.

* Dependency analysis. Jikes performs a dependency analysis on your
code that provides two very useful features: Incremental builds
and makefile generation.

Note that you must set CLASSPATH correctly to use jikes.