Local functions

[Alex Buckley]

Stephen Colebourne wrote:
> On 11 February 2010 00:38, Alex Buckley <Alex.Buckley at sun.com> wrote:
>> "APIs like it" is a comprehensive term. You mention predicates; any
>> filter operation, be it in ParallelArray or the most sequential
>> collections API, is an obvious candidate for lambdas.
> [then later]
>> Thanks for your view. The Java ecosystem is a big place. This project is
>> interested primarily in supporting parallel execution.
> 
> These two statements appear to be in contradiction. Or do you believe
> that you can primarily support parallel execution without compromising
> the more common case of regular inline non-parallel functors?

Since nothing is being removed from the language, and since lambdas for 
parallel execution are likely to be quite restricted, it seems to me 
that nothing is being compromised.

If as an Apache member you are concerned about the impact of lambdas on 
Commons Collections and its functors package, then you should say so, 
giving as much detail as possible.

>> Goals at http://blogs.sun.com/mr/entry/closures.
> 
> I'm looking for something clearer now we are in the formal project
> (not a kick off blog entry).
> 
> If you'll forgive me, I seem to recall lack of requirements being a
> common complaint about Project Jigsaw too. ie.

Your recall is faulty. A handful of people asked for requirements on the 
Jigsaw module system. Everyone else was rather excited by the progress 
that had already been made. The modular JDK is a clear driver for the 
Jigsaw module system; see my StrangeLoop presentation for more.

> (ie. I'm trying to encourage you to do things that will help everyone
> outside Sun understand what is going on here and make your lives a lot
> easier down the road)

What is going on here is a discussion among a small set of people with 
varying levels of expertise and interest. It is very early stage. As I 
said, I read all mails and - with the parallel execution goal mainly but 
not exclusively in mind - try to find the most acceptable features we 
could explain to a broad developer base.

> There are no other projects with any chance of altering the Java
> language.

Project Lambda is not a JSR and Sun is not the only member of the JCP 
Executive Committee. Perhaps you should solicit their views on these 
topics. Here they are: http://jcp.org/en/participation/committee

Alex