Suggestions for Java Generics Semantics in Java Version 7.0 _ Resurrected

[Dalibor Topic]

Kirill Grouchnikov wrote:
> I have written about the transparency / opacity of the JDK process last 
> November at [1] and pretty much nothing has changed. 

I write blog posts about OpenJDK quite regularly. A lot has improved 
since last November. Not because I write blog posts, though. But
because of all the good people in the OpenJDK community working on 
improving the project as a whole. Contributors. People who do 
stuff and make things happen.

> I am not working 
> on OpenJDK 7, nor do i want to see your "nothing wrong" comment as an
> implied lessening of the opinions of the overwhelmingly vast majority of 
> Java developers who don't contribute code to OpenJDK 7. 

There is nothing wrong with the majority of Java developers regarding
the JDK as simply a high quality tool provided by someone else, and not
contributing code to it. The majority of Firefox users don't contribute
to the development of the Firefox browser either. They don't have to.

> how many non-Sun employees have 
> contributed code to OpenJDK 7, and how many of those have not worked on
> Java prior to JDK 7?

man grep hg

> In fact, is there any single developer with commit rights
> to the code base that has not priorly worked at Sun on Java?

Yes, of course.

> The shaped / translucent windows API is the prime example of the functionality
> that was added without any prior public discussion on what will be supported
> and how the API will look like. 

In practice, it makes a lot more sense to have discussions around something 
that exists, rather then around things people wish existed, but don't. You
could go and have that discussion now, for example, with concrete examples.

> Are there any plans to include that in JDK? May be there are, may be there are not,
> but i'm certainly not going to get any answer in a public forum.

The list of features being developed for JDK 7 is here: 
http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7/features/

It's been public since December 2008, I think.

> About contributing to OpenJDK 7. I follow quite a few Swing related 
> discussions and i see an excruciatingly slow and exhausting process for 
> even the simplest things - such as removing warnings. It goes on and on for weeks 
> and months, with outside contributors repeatedly reminding Sun engineers that they
> are waiting for answers. What good is an open mailing list when you need to wait for 
> weeks to get an answer? What good is a source repository when you need to send a
> webrev and wait at the mercy of Sun engineers to check them in?

You don't have to wait for the Sun engineers to answer e-mails. You could
start contributing by reviewing patches, and submitting your own, and then building up
a community of reviewers for swing changes that the Sun engineers could trust to 
do a great job getting incoming changes cleaned up and brushed up to as high a 
standard as you'd like Swing code to be. You don't need to wait on Sun engineers 
for any of that.

If you did a good job as a contributor, you'd be able to get push rights, and 
then you could be checking in other people's changes after careful review by the
Swing developer community you've established.

You could be a leader. Or you could be a lurker, of course.

cheers,
dalibor topic
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