value types and support by various frameworks

[Jörg Hohwiller]

Dear valhalla heros,

I am new here and want to introduce myself. I am coding Java for 15 
years now both in business and in private (open source projects). IMHO 
Java was probably never the best language of the universe by itself but 
it surely has one of the greatest eco-systems and it continuously 
evolves over time.

What I missed from the start are proper value types and if I understood 
correctly that is currently on your roadmap. I always liked the way 
scala differs value and object types. We will probably never get rid of 
int vs. Integer but I have seen your paper [1] and this looks very 
promising.
While I am probably not the one to contribute on JVM level I might still 
be of some use for considering integration with various frameworks of 
the eco-system. In the end it will be desired that JAXB, JPA vendors, 
JSON serializers, etc. will be capable of handing value types smooth for 
marshalling and esp. un-marshalling.

Due to the lack of real value type support, I created a marker interface 
for a datatype that I missed in the JDK - see [2]. For the most common 
form, an atomic type, I created [3]. For hibernate and jackson I created 
generic adapters so that datatypes implementing the interfaces are 
automatically supported.
If one fine day value types will become reality it would be awesome if 
such support would be given OOTB for all this frameworks. I would be 
happy to assist you with discussing and supporting various frameworks as 
I am in contact with key developers already.

If there are other ideas where you think I could help, please let me know.

BTW: is this also the place for general discussions about making Java 
better? E.g. JavaDoc could get some improvements and the lack of real 
property support for java beans is a bigger pain as most people might 
think in the first place.
And have you seen projects like Knorxx or Dragome? I once started a big 
project in creating a PoC for a "JEE API" for rich clients that allows 
to create a rich client that runs both with JavaFx and in a browser 
(using Google Web Toolkit) - see [4]. JavaScript is the new answer for 
web clients and JSF will die out on the long run. But there is always a 
deep gap if you do JavaScript on the client and Java on the server. If 
developers have to do JavaScript for the client they might want to do it 
also on the server (with node.js). I personally do not like JavaScript 
and prefer Java a lot. Avatar should not be the only answer and JavaFx 
can not replace demands for browser clients and does not properly reach 
the mobile market. I would love to work on making Java a real solution 
for building browser and desktop clients and Dragome could be an answer 
for what I have started. However, I would need company or I am fighting 
without a chance...

Best regards
   Jörg

[1] http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~jrose/values/values-0.html
[2] 
http://m-m-m.sourceforge.net/apidocs/net/sf/mmm/util/lang/api/Datatype.html
[3] 
http://m-m-m.sourceforge.net/apidocs/net/sf/mmm/util/lang/api/SimpleDatatype.html
[4] 
http://m-m-m.sourceforge.net/apidocs/net/sf/mmm/client/ui/api/package-summary.html#documentation