[JSR308] Others possible syntaxes for type annotations

[Eugene Kuleshov]

Maxim Kizub wrote:
> The proposition was about using uniform syntax for type parameters and 
> annotations.
> In this way type annotation syntax IS non-ambiguous, uniform and 
> logical. Compare
> 1) @A String @B string;
> 2) @A String<@B> string;
> The case (1) has strange reading rules, because it looks like (@A 
> String) (@B string), but must be read as @A (String @B) string.
> In contrast, in case (2) it's obvious, that @B belongs to type String, 
> not to the variable.
  Maxim, can you please provide more details for the suggested grammar 
changes? I.e. what are you suggesting to add into the existing grammar. 
See http://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jls/se5.0/html/syntax.html#18.1

  Example with a string type is rather limited, so I wonder how 
generified types would look like in your proposal.
  Say, in something like Map<Foo<Boo>, Map<String, Boo>> how would you 
separately annotate each Map, Foo and Boo types? Maybe I am just 
confused by use of <> and it may worth investigating use of some other 
token? Though there is no single-char "bracket" tokens left and we'll 
have to use some multi-char token, and that won't look pretty...

  regards,
  Eugene