[JSR308] array-valued annotations

[Ted Neward]

Sounds good. (Hey, Doug--nice to... er... see?... you again. :-) )

Ted Neward
Java, .NET, XML Services
Consulting, Teaching, Speaking, Writing
http://www.tedneward.com
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: jsr308-bounces at lists.csail.mit.edu [mailto:jsr308-
> bounces at lists.csail.mit.edu] On Behalf Of Doug Lea
> Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2007 4:35 PM
> To: Michael Ernst
> Cc: jsr308 at lists.csail.mit.edu
> Subject: Re: [JSR308] array-valued annotations
> 
> [First: Hi everyone!]
> 
> [Second: Apologies in advance that I probably won't have a lot of
> time to devote to JSR308 stuff in the near future.]
> 
> [OK, Back to arrays...]
> 
> Arrays have been problems in all sorts of ways in all sorts of
> JSRs over the years. My sense is that you must expect up
> front to compromise goals and at best come up with something
> that doesn't introduce too many new oddities, to add to the existing
> oddities that
> (1) arrays don't work right with generics;
> (2) things like "int[]" are sorta classes,  but not  first-class classes;
> (3) you cannot qualify elements as final or volatile;
> (4) Nobody, especially the people who use them most,
> thinks that multidimensional arrays are
> a reasonable substitute for having proper uniform matrices.
> Etc.
> 
> One unforseen byproduct of generics in Java 5 is that people
> seems to use collections like ArrayLists in a lot of cases
> where they would have previously used arrays. So perhaps
> there is less pressure to get arrays right, so long as we can get
> collections "right".
> 
> I think that Tom's initial reaction to suggestions about notation
> probably reflects this. While you can do some strange things
> with arrays, most of the strangenesses are not the kinds of things
> that you'd show your mom, not to mention spend time annotating.
> 
> So, given all this, it might be useful to center discussion
> on use cases: What kinds of common, useful, non-embarassing
> constructions do we think that people will want to annotate, and
> how? Maybe getting 90% of this covered is the best to hope for?
> 
> 
> -Doug
> 
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