list literal gotcha and suggestion

[Reinier Zwitserloot]

This isn't a fair comparison. You should obviously add any code that  
matches the following rough pattern:

List x = new ArrayList<T>();
x.add(expr1);
x.add(expr2);


Also, the very fact that list literals don't exist means people write  
code differently. For example, instead of writing a method that'll  
accept a list of foos, or accept a list of foos in a constructor, they  
may instead have an addFoo() method which adds them one-at-a-time to  
the list, even though the most likely usecase boils down to a bunch of  
addFoo() calls.

I use ImmutableList/ImmutableMap.of() almost every day.

  --Reinier Zwitserloot


On 2009/08/10, at 02:46, Lawrence Kesteloot wrote:

>> http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&lr=&q=ImmutableList.of| 
>> ImmutaleSet.of|ImmutableMap.of|Arrays.asList\(\w%2B,\w%2B 
>> +lang:java&sbtn=Search
>>
>> Seems like all sorts of configuration/static data/quick and
>> dirty/unittest/mock/etc types of syntax would benefit.
>
> That search returns 800 files out of a total of 11,300,000. That's one
> file in 14,125, or 0.007%.
>
> I would be against a feature which (1) has such an unclear correct
> specification; (2) provides so little advantage over a static
> ArrayList.of() and HashSet.of(); and (3) helps only one file in
> 14,125.
>
> On the other hand, the idea (proposed twice in this discussion) of
> have a pair literal seems much more widely useful, and would allow
> HashMap.of().
>
> Lawrence
>