> >> Languages with runtime typing (Java, Python, Ruby, etc.) most naturally >> represent unions implicitly with runtime typing. > > > The bit that bugs me most here is the casting in Java. We could add helper > methods in the specific API that would give folks compile-time help, but > it's weird that the methods would be "getString()" instead of "getFooBar()". > >
Some sort of change to make Unions cleaner is needed in the Specific API. I'm writing manual wrappers to do this and its ugly -- difficult to encapsulate a union with either inheritance or object composition. Additionally, the generated classes represent a union with Object which seems imperfect. I think be a SpecificRecord or other named type or interface (SpecificUnion?). The object there will always be a type known to Avro, not any object. That is a useful place to put helper methods -- perhaps where union type resolution helpers can be placed. I guess this is related to AVRO-266. >> Maven > > > Scott, if you have Maven-fu that you'd like to share, please do! The goal > is to be available as easily as possible in as many ways as possible. > I wish I knew more on the packaging side of it. For other projects that publish artifacts to maven, all I have to do is reference them in a pom, then 15 seconds later in my dev environment I not only get the jar files and runtime dependencies, but the javadoc and source code too. Then, while debugging I can step through code into these libraries and see the source, and likewise see all the javadoc from the IDE while I'm using the API instead of switching out to a browser. My understanding is that it is as simple as making source and doc jar files and publishing them along with the runtime jar file, but I have never done that myself. > -- Philip
