Why Arrayish implements Cloneable?

[John Rose]

A2.0 entails splitting current types of the form <any T> T[] in into interfaces and implementations.
That is, in a future VM we will have polymorphic, generic interfaces (Arrayish, etc.) and built-in
linearly stored implementations of the same, what we are familiar with as "classic arrays".

We *could* deem that either or both of the marker interfaces Serializable and Cloneable on all T[]
are, in fact, implementation artifacts, limited to classic arrays, and not pushed into the generic APIs.

In fact, on second thought, we *should* do this for Cloneable, since it is not an API.  The generic
method <any T> clone()T[] is part of the array API, but it is not at all dependent on Cloneable.

What about Serializable?  Perhaps we can mandate (another way) that all Arrayish's will be
serializable, without putting in the marker interface.  But I think that's a losing battle.

It might in fact be the case that many (or even all?) array implementations would chose to
include both Cloneable and Serializable, but that's not necessarily true in all possible worlds.

— John

P.S. I was reading Smullyan on modal logic last night, hence the modal connective in that
last statement.

On Apr 27, 2016, at 7:45 AM, Brian Goetz <Brian.Goetz at Oracle.COM> wrote:
> 
> Currently, the array classes (int[].class, String[].class) are totally magical and spring into existence when referenced.  They all happen to have some common supertypes (Cloneable, Serializable).
> 
> This patch moves things forward incrementally (see John's talk on Arrays 2.0, http://medianetwork.oracle.com/video/player/1785452137001) by providing all arrays with a real supertype, Arrayish, which exposes element accessors.  This allows, for example, abstraction over array types (<T extends Arrayish>), as well as being a precursor to some other cool stuff.
> 
> On 4/27/2016 10:32 AM, Paul Benedict wrote:
>> Oh, okay ... so basically when you let the native "any" type be boxed, you're exposing the same functionality through an interface.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Paul
>> 
>> On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 9:25 AM, Brian Goetz <brian.goetz at oracle.com <mailto:brian.goetz at oracle.com>> wrote:
>> 
>>    Because array types (int[], String[]) *already* implement
>>    Cloneable and Serializable.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>    On 4/27/2016 10:18 AM, Paul Benedict wrote:
>> 
>>        I only ask because Cloneable is typically looked at as a poor
>>        mechanism for
>>        duplicating objects. That's the sentiment, anyway, widely
>>        popularized by
>>        the Effective Java book.
>> 
>>        Cheers,
>>        Paul
>> 
>> 
>> 
>