Named lambdas (was Re: Serialization stability and naming (and syntax))

[Kevin Bourrillion]

Huh. Can it be that simple? This works for me if no one else sees a problem
with it!


On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 10:30 AM, Dan Smith <daniel.smith at oracle.com> wrote:

> The approach we settled on for names for recursive lambdas was to use the
> targeted variable name:
>
> IntOp fact = x -> {
>   if (x == 0) return 1;
>   else return x*fact.apply(x-1);
> };
>
> That also seems like a useful, unobtrusive way to give a lambda a name for
> debugging.  If somebody cares about readable names for debugging, they'll
> probably also care about readable names in code, and the way you name
> something in code is assign it to a variable.
>
> Of course there will be cases where we'd need the name to be "fact$2" or
> something, but for a best-effort problem like debugging hints, that seems
> good enough.
>
> —Dan
>
> On Oct 9, 2012, at 9:40 AM, Kevin Bourrillion <kevinb at google.com> wrote:
>
> Okay, so the benefits of user-provided names seem to be
>
> - More readable toString and stack traces than the auto-provided name
> (lambda#8 or whatever)
> - A very small (as noted by Brian) potential to make serialization usable
> across code changes in a few more situations
> - It should apparently help hot-swapping to be usable in a few more
> situations
>
> Anything else?
>
> If we come up with some syntax for users to name individual lambda
> expressions, do we think these benefits are great enough that enough users
> will name their lambdas enough of the time to get real benefit?  I'm
> unsure.  Even though lambdas are way more concise than classes, this
> supreme terseness of lambda expressions is sort of intoxicating and I
> wonder if most users will get drunk on that and not want any extra
> characters that weren't strictly required.
>
> Likewise, to the extent that any of the advantages can also be realized by
> switching to a method reference, do we think enough users will actually be
> willing to make that switch?
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 11:44 AM, Andrey Breslav <
> andrey.breslav at jetbrains.com> wrote:
>
>> I would like to point out one thing that somehow keeps escaping our
>> discussions of this matter.
>>
>> Although for some people serialization is the biggest concern here, for a
>> lot more people a much bigger concern is hot-swapping, where name stability
>> is very important as well.
>>
>> In my mind, this requires us to reconsider the arguments for having/not
>> having stable names/signatures where we could have that.
>>
>> --
>> Andrey Breslav
>> http://jetbrains.com
>> Develop with pleasure!
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Kevin Bourrillion | Java Librarian | Google, Inc. | kevinb at google.com
>
>
>


-- 
Kevin Bourrillion | Java Librarian | Google, Inc. | kevinb at google.com