JDK-8300691 - final variables in for loop headers should accept updates

[Maurizio Cimadamore]

On 21/10/2024 18:00, Archie Cobbs wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 21, 2024 at 11:36 AM Maurizio Cimadamore 
> <maurizio.cimadamore at oracle.com> wrote:
>
>     What I'm trying to say is that if a developer is confused (by the
>     i++) on what "frozen" means for a loop variable, they won't find
>     any clarity in our explanation that "lexically scoping trumps
>     everything else". E.g. whether a developer reads the STEP part of
>     a loop as part of the body (after the end of the body) or not is,
>     I believe, a very subjective thing - and one which affects how any
>     change we make in the area will be perceived (IMHO).
>
> Yes, if a developer is mentally cutting and pasting the STEP onto the 
> tail of the BODY then you're right, that makes it appear as if the 
> variable is not really "frozen".
>
> But the original basic for() proposal has the analogous problem - 
> i.e., if a developer is mentally cutting and pasting the STEP onto the 
> tail of the BODY, then in the original proposal the variable no longer 
> appears to be "effectively final in the body of the loop".
>
> So it seems to me that this proposal and the original basic for() 
> proposal suffer equally in that particular respect, and such a 
> developer is not going to be satisfied by either of these new mental 
> models.
Yes, that is what I was trying to suggest - e.g. the "generalization" 
might feel satisfying from an implementation (or specification) 
perspective - but I'm not sure it will make things more natural to grasp 
(for those developers who found the original proposal confusing).
>
>     Of course, as with every new proposed feature, we hear a lot from
>     developers who think that the new proposal addresses a specific
>     pain point that they thought should never existed in the first
>     place. But we tend to hear less about a less vocal portion of
>     users who might just be silently ok with the status quo. Or maybe,
>     in this instance, we don't hear from them because they aren't
>     there (although, Tagir expressed some concerns [1], so I have to
>     assume there are such developers out there _somewhere_ :-) )
>
> I too would like to hear more opinions... speak up, naysayers :)
:-)
>
> -Archie
>
> -- 
> Archie L. Cobbs
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mail.openjdk.org/pipermail/amber-dev/attachments/20241021/adad6264/attachment.htm>