Question on layer/peeling

[Vitaly Davidovich]

Sure, I don't care about syntax at this point so long as this (common) use
case will be straightforward to support.

Sent from my phone
On Jan 5, 2015 9:24 PM, "Brian Goetz" <brian.goetz at oracle.com> wrote:

> Yes, this is pretty straightforward.  In the bucket of "things that are
> easy and small, so we'll ignore them until we solve the ones that are big
> and difficult.")
>
> The hardest part is picking a syntax (please, no suggestions!)
>
>
> On 1/5/2015 9:19 PM, Vitaly Davidovich wrote:
>
>> C# has a default (T) keyword to allow generic code to obtain the "zero"
>> value for a type param.  Something like that for java would be nice.
>>
>> Sent from my phone
>> On Jan 5, 2015 9:15 PM, "Michael Barker" <mikeb01 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>  Hi,
>>>
>>> The SotS talks about the use of 'layer' to create an alternative
>>> implementation of methods when the type of an <any T> is known to be a
>>> reference type.  However, the examples only show the use of the layer
>>> keyword on an interface definition, where as I've encountered at least
>>> one
>>> case where the internal implementation needs to differentiate between a
>>> reference-type and value-type based collection.  The example I'm thinking
>>> about is the null-ing out of array elements in a collection (which is
>>> obviously a no-op with a value type, but necessity with reference
>>> types).  Is an interface required in order to define a 'layer' or could
>>> it
>>> be done within a concrete class?
>>>
>>> E.g. is the following or something similar possible?  If not, how would
>>> it
>>> be achieved with current spec?
>>>
>>> class ArrayList<any T> {
>>>      T[] values;
>>>      int position;
>>>
>>>      void removeLast() {
>>>          if (position <= 0) {
>>>              return;
>>>          }
>>>
>>>          --position;
>>>          clear(position);
>>>      }
>>>
>>>      private void clear(int index) {
>>>      }
>>>
>>>      layer<ref T> {
>>>          private void clear(int index) {
>>>              values[index] = null;
>>>          }
>>>      }
>>> }
>>>
>>> Mike.
>>>
>>>