Feedback and comments on ARM proposal

[Mark Mahieu]

2009/3/21 Tim Peierls <tim at peierls.net>

> On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 5:18 PM, Mark Mahieu <markmahieu at googlemail.com>wrote:
>
>> Or perhaps a marker interface rather than a special package?  That might
>> be more consistent with existing 'special behaviour' (eg. Serializable).
>
>
> And a magic interface seems simpler than a magic package. It would make it
> a lot easier for people to roll their own AutoXyz variants. OTOH, maybe
> unrestricted extensibility is just asking for trouble?
>
> --tim
>

Possibly, though I'm sure that people who will 'abuse' ARM by applying it to
inappropriate APIs would be just as likely to do so with a restricted set of
interfaces anyway.  Names like 'close' are wonderfully generic and easy to
incorporate into an API if you've convinced yourself that the end justifies
the means.
I don't think there's any way it (either approach) would allow people to
cause trouble with APIs they don't own though.  For example, I couldn't get
ARM to call Iterator.remove() at the end of my try blocks :)

I guess I'm most interested in those APIs that would otherwise be left out
in the cold, like the new JDBC 4 java.sql methods I mentioned in another
email.

Mark