[JSR308] Can we agree on our goals?

[Brian Goetz]

> For my part, I would be very happy with adding the ability to have
> annotations on types and statements (or even just loop statements).
> I'm not personally trying to use any kind of strategy to lead us down
> a slippery slope towards annotations on all possible syntactic
> categories.  I think if Java programmers can annotate declarations,
> types, and (loop) statements, that will be plenty.

No one ever THINKS they are leading the way down a slippery slope.  It 
is rarely part of anyone's "strategy", except for the truly subversive. 
  The road to hell is paved with good intentions!  But if you are not 
constantly vigilant that you will in fact do so anyway, that's where 
you're going.

Statements of the form "I don't need annotations on everything, I just 
need them on X" begs to dance down the slippery slope; different 
constituencies will have different visions of X, and we end up with X, 
Y, Z, and Q, and THEN another JSR to add everything else...

One doesn't have to spend much time with this list to find more items 
from the gallery of slippery slopes.