jdk7 b58, VM doesn't smell good

[John Rose]

I hope b59 smells better.  I just pushed the changes I've chosen for  
b59 to the patch repo.

I am working on other changes too, but I am in point-fix mode, as JDK7  
M3 settles down for JavaOne.

My goal at the moment is to find workarounds for broken stuff, so as  
not to be making widespread changes.

Here are some workarounds that will help:

--- Use MethodHandles.lookup().findFoo(...) if you run into trouble  
with cached or public lookup-factories.

Try to access only methods on the current class (the one calling  
lookup()), or else public methods in public classes.

This avoids bugs with the access checking logic, by exercising the  
simplest forms of access checking.

--- In your method handle invocation sites and in invokedynamic sites,  
prefer method handles of built-in types.

A symptom of when you might want to do this is "NoClassDefFound" at an  
invoke site, for an application class that obviously exists.

Generally speaking, the inserted leading argument type to  
Lookup.findVirtual only gets in the way.  Use convertArguments to  
change the leading argument to Object, or bind it to an instance  
immediately.

--- When currying method handles with insertArgument, insert only a  
leading argument (#0) to a direct method handle.

If you have something more complicated you want to do with currying,  
consider using a JavaMethodHandle instead.

(Yes, all this should be taken care of for you, and it will be!)

-- John