Update on Coin futures from JavaOne

[Joe Darcy]

Hi Bruce,

Sorry for the belated reply.

Yes, the omission of addressing the issue of providing additional 
literals to more sensibly initialize byte values was deliberate; we 
don't view addressing that as having as high a priority as addressing 
other shortcomings.

Above a maintenance threshold, other small language changes will have to 
go through the JEP processes.  For example, IMO changing the 
try-with-resources statement to accept an effectively final variable as 
a resource to manage (as opposed to requiring a new variable to be 
declared as done in Java SE 7) would *not* require a JEP.

-Joe

On 10/5/2011 12:57 AM, Bruce Chapman wrote:
> Joe,
>
> Is the omission of byte literals (or alternatively unsigned literals, or
> unsigned bytes) deliberate, or is there still intention to address this
> somehow?
>
> Secondly, is the JEP process the way to propose further small language
> enhancements?
>
> Bruce
>
> On 5/10/2011 1:52 p.m., Joe Darcy wrote:
>> Hello.
>>
>> Earlier today, I presented my JavaOne session on "The Heads and Tails of
>> Project Coin." [1]  The talk included some retrospectives from
>> developing the Coin features which I hope to write up in more detail in
>> the near future.
>>
>> Turning toward the future, the talk also spent a little time discussing
>> possible language changes coming in JDK 8. First, planning for JDK 8 is
>> on-going and the feature list is subject to change; the JEP process [2]
>> will be used to help define the roadmap going forward. With those
>> caveats, small language changes we're considering proposing for JDK 8
>> include:
>>
>>       Refinements to JDK 7 Coin features
>>           try-with-resources on an effective final variable
>>           removing restrictions on usage of diamond
>>           @SafeVarargs on private methods
>>       Collection literals(?)
>>       Repeating Annotations(?)
>>       Method and constructor parameter names at runtime(?)
>>
>> Personally, I would welcome programming with collection literals.
>> Repeating annotations and the ability to retrieve the names of
>> method/constructors at runtime are both long-standing requests from our
>> colleagues in EE.
>>
>> However, with the broad scope of language and platform changes coming
>> into JDK 8 courtesy Lambda and Jigsaw, all these smaller language
>> changes have to be made somewhat opportunistically. For that reason, for
>> JDK 8 we are *not* planning on having another open call for proposals as
>> was done for Project Coin in JDK 7.
>>
>> -Joe
>>
>> [1] http://blogs.oracle.com/darcy/entry/project_coin_javaone2011
>> [2] http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/0
>>
>>
>