+1 for Elvis operator, +1000 for [non-]nullability support in the
typesystem like Fan. Ideally, the latter featutre should be supported at
the bytecode level (not sugar) so a big number of variables would be
hard-tagged as never null, which I suppose would result in faster code
without dependency on nullcheck removal optimizations that are not
always feasible and even when possible, have costs like code bloat.
+0.5 for the two Objects.nonNull() methods. They are useful at least
because they avoid double evaluation. I'd prefer all Objects methods to
live in the global namespace - just static-import Objects.* by default -
but I understand the issues. And I'd prefer to rename these methods to
nvl(), identical to SQL so it's a good name even if terse, and I prefer
terse names in functions that are likely to be used multiple times in
complex expressions (many people prefer a operator like Elvis because
even nvl() may be too cumbersome).
-1000 for automatic swallowing of nulls like JavaFX Script, that I
reported as a bug (http://javafx-jira.kenai.com/browse/JFXC-3447).
Just my 2c.
Em 16/11/2009 14:28, Marek Kozieł escreveu:
2009/11/16 Stephen Colebourne<scolebou...@joda.org>:
2009/11/16 David Holmes - Sun Microsystems<david.hol...@sun.com>:
In this specific case, the question was "why include it when you can
use a?b:c". Well, I've seen resistance by developers to that language
feature, and I know some places outright block it in coding standards.
For many, a method call is preferred, and "overhead" isn't what
matters.
I find such a mentality to programming to be utterly incomprehensible. Who
are these people? And what motivates them?
I say let these people define their own libraries to support their
pathologies - don't lumber it on the rest of the general population of
programmers.
This is where things can get very heated, so please take this as just
my take on what I see.
The community that defines Java - Sun, Google, Open Source, Bloggers -
are, in general, the experts and gurus in the field. Most people
reading this list have no problem with the ternary statement. Most of
us realise that null avoidance is better than null-handling. However,
we are, by far, the *minority* of Java developers, not the majority.
My call is not to let the majority rule, but to understand that the
quality code and standards of Sun/Google/SiliconValley are far, far
rarer everywhere else. Sometimes as leaders it is necessary to accept
that not everyone is going to do things the 'right' way, and sometimes
it is better to help mitigate the 'wrong' way (hence Elvis and
friends). In other words, what do you do when telling people to do the
right thing fails?
As I say, this is as much about opinion and what you have experienced
as hard facts. For example, I know that nulls and null-handling is
everywhere in the codebase I work on, and I don't consider that to be
especially wrong or broken, nor do my colleagues.
BTW, for the future I'd remind everyone of Fan - http://fandev.org -
where all variable references are non-null by default, something which
we should all support.
Stephen
I agree with Stephen.
In real word you have to deal with "pathologies" which are made by others.
When you deal with muck you need pitchfork not a white gloves.
I discuses a lot about Elvis null-safe operator and conclusion was always same:
Java without it is better, but there is a lot of cases when we need it
to deal with crappy code.
