Switch expressions -- next steps

[Brian Goetz]

Without cutting off useful discussions in progress, it seems to me that 
we've reached a point where the design decisions for JEP 325 are largely 
stabilized and there's a prototype available that implements this design 
point.  (Much of the recent discussion, especially on nulls and 
exhaustiveness, is more relevant to the larger effort to support 
patterns in switch, though some of it projects into the subset specified 
by JEP 325.)  As a reminder, our motivation for splitting JEP 325 off 
from the larger effort is that (a) it is useful independent of patterns 
and (b) constitutes a stable, smaller piece we can deliver to users sooner.

Our next steps are to update the JEP document to reflect recent 
decisions and clarify the scope of the feature, and get a draft 
specification that captures the design center we are circling. (I'll 
also try to get a draft of the current status of the broader pattern 
matching effort out soon.)

It would be great if people could try out the prototype on their 
codebases and report any feedback!

For the IDE folks here, we'd welcome any preliminary support for the 
feature, as it seems to have stabilized to the point where it can be 
prototyped effectively.