Defender methods and compatibility

[Peter Levart]

On 11/30/10, Mark Thornton wrote:
> On 30/11/2010 08:18, Peter Levart wrote:
> > So the preferred way of defining a common extension method which could 
> > be re-used by other vendors is to define a common super-interface with 
> > a single extension method which all concerned interfaces would extend. 
> > No SC breakage would result if this "single" definition is ever 
> > changed (being inline or not).
> That common super interface needs to include all the methods relevant to 
> the extension method.

In the absence of common super-interface two extension methods in unrelated interfaces with common default linkage means that the target static method has to deal with a common super-type of both interfaces (as 1st argument) which is java.lang.Object. Either it only has access to Object members or it has to assume different possible run-time implementations that could be passed to it and cast (which is ugly). So a common super-interface is desirable in this respect too.

Peter

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> Mark
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