Suggestions for Java Generics Semantics in Java Version 7.0 _ Resurrected

[Neal Gafter]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 2:06 AM, Florian Weimer <fweimer at bfk.de> wrote:

> * 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?


No, we didn't work under that assumption.  Generally speaking, it has never
been a goal to allow code written against one version of the platform
specification to run on an earlier version of the platform.