Eliminate ByteBuffers

[Elliotte Harold]

Well, not everywhere. :-) However I do wonder about the use of 
ByteBuffers in what amount to maps such as NamedAttributeView.

int write(String name, ByteBuffer src) throws IOException

Why not just simple getAttribute and setAttribute methods? We have them but

Object getAttribute(String attribute)
                     throws IOException

     Reads the value of an attribute.

     In this release, this method may not be used to read the value of a 
named attribute. Consequently this method will return null.

and

NamedAttributeView setAttribute(String attribute,
                                 Object value)
                                 throws IOException

     Writes the value of an named attribute from a buffer.

     The value parameter is a ByteBuffer and this method writes the 
value of the attribute from the buffer as if by invoking the write method.

This is so weird I'm not sure where to start. The object passed to 
setAttribute is always a ByteBuffer, but it's declared as an Object? 
Why? getAttribute always returns null?

This is improving, but it's still very strange and hard to follow.

I think named attributes need to be reduced to a simple String name and 
an Object or String (probably Object) value. ByteBuffers simply should 
not be in the picture here. I guess you have ByteBuffers on the brain 
because of all the other work you're doing with them, but they're  not a 
common or comfortable API for this sort of work. Nor are they necessary. 
  I think if you treat the NamedAttributeView as a map, it will be much 
simpler, cleaner, and more effective.


-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo at metalab.unc.edu
Refactoring HTML Just Published!
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