PRE-PROPOSAL: Source and Encoding keyword

[Neal Gafter]

On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 9:54 AM, Roel Spilker <r.spilker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Can you please explain how in the current situation the "interaction of code
> written in different source settings when combined
> into a single program" was handled just fine, but would fail if we do it
> using a single javac invocation using the source keyword?

I think you missed my point.  Project coin is for small language
changes.  Small, as in requiring only modest changes to the language
specification.  This proposal would require a large change to the
language specification.  The language specification today does NOT
talk about mixed version programs, as the specification describes only
a single version of the language.  You may think it's a bad thing that
there is no central specification we can consult to understand how
mixed version code should work, and I might even agree.  But the spec
including the proposed change would be required to describe all
versions of the language and their interactions, and much of this
specification work would have to be done from scratch.  I don't mean
to say that is necessarily a bad thing, I just can't imagine how it
could be done in the scope of project coin.