Suggestions for Java Generics Semantics in Java Version 7.0 _ Resurrected

[Florian Weimer]

* Alex Buckley:

> 2) The reason it is a feature is that many experts - including but not
> limited to Philip Wadler, Martin Odersky, Gilad Bracha, Joshua Bloch,
> and Neal Gafter - worked for many years on crafting a generic type
> system that allowed people to migrate their non-generic clients and
> libraries smoothly. Reified generics would have made that migration
> more complex. If you don't know why, find out.

Didn't those people work under the assumption that no VM changes were
possible because generics code should run on pre-generics VMs, too?

Obviously, this heavily constrains the solution space.  In the end,
Java 5 bytecode could not run on pre-Java 5 VMs, so this requirement
was somewhat pointless, wasn't it?

-- 
Florian Weimer                <fweimer at bfk.de>
BFK edv-consulting GmbH       http://www.bfk.de/
Kriegsstraße 100              tel: +49-721-96201-1
D-76133 Karlsruhe             fax: +49-721-96201-99