On 28 May 2012 13:28, Sébastien Brisard <sebastien.bris...@m4x.org> wrote: > Hi Gilles, > > 2012/5/28 Gilles Sadowski <gil...@harfang.homelinux.org>: >> Hello. >> >>> >>> > >>> > Why do you call "valueOf"? >>> > >>> I have to say I do not like implicit conversions, that's why I tend to >>> always use Integer.valueOf and the likes. >> >> Why? >> > This is going to get "philosophical": I would not dare to claim that > I'm holding *the* truth, this is only my way of seeing things. I do > not like things to happen implicitely, because I think that it opens a > door to errors (this would not be true of professional programmers, > but remember that I work in an environment where people are not real > computer scientists... so my philosophy is "close as many doors as you > can"...). I even think that J. Bloch has a nice example of potential > issues with auto-boxing. However, I agree with you: calling valueOf in > this context (that is: building a new exception) is certainly > far-fetched. > > That was the initial reason why I moved from C++ to Java ten years > ago: too many things happened "behind my back". Again, I'm not saying > that C++ is evil. I'm just saying that I did not have the background > with C++ to be fully aware of these implicit assumptions, and their > potential consequences. > > I'm pretty sure I will not convince you on this. I hope I have at > least convinced you that I have a good reason to do it this way :-) >
I agree with you - making boxing explicit is better. The reasoning is that implicit boxing/unboxing can hide ineffiicient conversions as well as subtle bugs. I've seen code which treats the same item variously as a Integer and an int for no good reason. The compiler warnings allow the careful programmer to investigate and choose one or the other. Yes, the code is a bit longer, but it clearly shows that the boxing/unboxing was intended, and not an accident of compiler "helpfulness". >>> However, if you think that >>> it leads to less readable code, I'm OK with your way of seeing things. >> >> Good! ;-) >> >> Gilles >> > As I said, I will remove these explicit boxings (but be warned: I've > used valueOf() in the past, and do apologize for any unwanted > occurence...). > > Best regards, > Sébastien > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org
