Comments on the straw man...

[Stephen Colebourne]

Stefan Schulz wrote:
> I'm not quite sure, what to make of the strawman proposal. To me, it 
> rather looks like a quickly sketched technical wishlist for lambda 
> expressions, especially due to the tutorial style (but I think, that's 
> somehow what Mark mentions in the first paragraphs).
> 
> As Neal pointed out, there is lots of work to be done before it could be 
> taken as a serious proposal, and I don't think the strawman being 
> appropriate in its current state to do this by a rather large group of 
> people as are on this mailing list, but a reduced number of language and 
> closure/lambda experts (not implying that I would be qualified as such 
> an expert). The slightly heated discussion on one of the very most 
> optional parts "extension methods" IMHO shows the problem in not having 
> a mature base for common refinement.
> 
> I ask myself, if it would be wiser to pick up the latest version of CfJ 
> and adopt it to the ideas as written down by Mark. For the start, I 
> would even put the enhanced syntax for method-like invocation of 
> function types into the optional section. It seems, too many thoughts 
> are going into the beauty of syntax before having the base done right.

I'd like to effectively second this. Neal's work in CFJ 0.6a (which is 
in many respects a merger of BGGA and FCM) is the only logical place to 
start this work. It has had all the difficult issues thought through, 
and has a prototype that is isn't a million miles away.

In fact, I'd go further and say that I struggle to see what the 
difference is between the concepts in the strawman and the real detail 
in CFJ (apart from extension methods, which warrant a separate debate).

Mark, we have limited time to get this into JDK 7 - is NIH really the 
right approach here?

Stephen