the debug VM prints out "COMPILE FAILED" on simple programs even though the behavior is correct :

public class HiMom {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("HiMom!");
    }
}

reproduced with 1.4.2 build 18:

bash-2.00$ /java/re/jdk/1.4.2/latest/binaries/solaris-sparc/bin/java_g 
-server -Xcomp -XX:+PrintCompilation -XX:CompileOnly=.main HiMom


VM option '+PrintCompilation'
VM option 'CompileOnly=.main'
  1   b   HiMom::main (9 bytes)
  1   COMPILE FAILED
HiMom!