Re: Open letter to sun about java generics syntax

From: Hamilcar Barca (hamilcar_at_tld.always.invalid)
Date: 07/28/04 

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 20:37:21 -0600

In article <2etdg0hrscp5efnnf38ks63r60g9gbf0j2@4ax.com> (Wed, 28 Jul 2004
00:40:59 +0000), Roedy Green wrote:

> On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 17:41:07 -0600, Hamilcar Barca
> <hamilcar@tld.always.invalid> wrote or quoted :
>
>> Sun's additions are certainly not perfect but they're
>>about as good as can be expected.
>
> The me they smell of eau de kludge.

I don't really agree. When I first saw Java's Collection collection, I
thought it was a serious mistake that generics meant "containers hold
Objects" and require lots of casting by the programmer. In the last few
months, I've read all the formal proposals, from which came Java's new
parametric polymorphism. I now believe there is no way to do what
programmers might wish without some serious tradeoffs.

> Use of extends to mean implements

There seems to be a premium on simplicity in Java, even at the cost of
expressiveness and/or power. I don't really disagree with you on this
point, although I find Sun's keyword usage acceptable.

> and & to mean comma really stink.

This I find a bit bizarre and I don't see any precedent for the syntax.

> I would far sooner have gone with some more consistent, even if it meant
> cleaning up some old code that used a keyword by accident.

Here, I'm in perfect agreement, except I'd be quite willing to break
backwards compatibility in both the language, the libraries, and the JVM.
Sun's engineers (and undoubtedly their marketroids and management-types)
obviously disagree with me.

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