Re: caution: bleeding-edge ahead!

[Timo Kinnunen]

How about a new keyword “__aliasOf”, which would be used in a class declaration like this:


public class IntArrayList __aliasOf ArrayList<int> implements List<int> {

// int layer is implemented here

}




The effect of __aliasOf would be that user code could call 


new ArrayList<int>() 


but this would actually execute like a call to 


new IntArrayList() 


and user code would then be compiled against the methods and fields from IntArrayList.



(And the name of the keyword is subject to change, of course.)





-- 
Have a nice day,
Timo.

Sent from Windows Mail





From: Maurizio Cimadamore
Sent: ‎Tuesday‎, ‎January‎ ‎13‎, ‎2015 ‎1‎:‎21
To: Ali Ebrahimi, Brian Goetz
Cc: valhalla-dev at openjdk.java.net






On 12/01/15 23:32, Ali Ebrahimi wrote:
> Why we can not adapt C++'s #if, #elif, #else, and #endif Directives 
> for java with java-like syntax. You can see that in hotspot code the 
> similar problems (OS depends-code) perfectly to be solved by Directives.
>
> So we can have support for multiple any type vars and nested layers, 
> and compiler can do flow analysis for nested layers (where clauses or 
> what ever you want).
Hi Ali,
I agree that, to some extent, the end goal of layers is to effectively 
enable some form of 'optional' membership/overriding which could also be 
thought of in terms of classic C++-style macros around method 
declarations/blocks etc. In fact, I think that, apart from partial 
abstractness, what's implemented right now is more or less functionally 
equivalent to layers (modulo bugs, of course). That said, I think we are 
in the search of something that would sit better with the Java 
programming model; granted, #ifdefs and friends will take you there, but 
I think it will also be overly powerful - and prone to be abused (and 
perhaps, as some of you have noted in this mailing list, layers has that 
problem); what if there was a nice little construct that, with minimal 
footprint could take you all the way there - meaning that you could 
retrofit the libraries you care about, w/o really adding a new powerful 
hammer to the language? I think that 'something' is the sort of magic we 
are after here.

Maurizio