Alternatives to Value Types?

Ming-Yee Iu valhalla at jinq.org
Wed Jan 7 04:35:00 UTC 2015


Stephen Colbourne might have a point about these value types. Are there
alternatives to value types that give fewer benefits but don't require such
large Java changes?

I'm sure you've considered it before and dismissed it, but maybe instead of
value types, we could have value "fields"? I have no idea what I'm saying,
but maybe instead of "No Identity" being an annotation on types, "No
Identity" could be an annotation added to fields?

class NoIdentityContainer<T> {
  @NoIdentity_CopyByValue_HaveGoodLocality T field;
}

Creating an instance of the class will also create an instance of the T
object with locality near to the container instance. Assigning to the field
will actually result in a copy of the contents over the existing instance
instead of just changing the pointer. Maybe the annotation could be applied
to method parameters and return values as well. Objects stay as objects.
Primitives stay as primitives. The only classes that have to deal with new
"value" semantics are those classes that explicitly use the annotation.
Things still break, but in a different way that might be more palatable.


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