On 31/03/2021 23:54, Dan Smith wrote:
On Mar 31, 2021, at 3:27 PM, Maurizio Cimadamore
<maurizio.cimadam...@oracle.com> wrote:
What I'd be curious though, is if the @ValueBased annotation could be enhanced to say
_which_ primitive class default you want (and then javac could enforce extra checks if
you pick the "val" default). If something like this was feasible (cc'ing Dan),
maybe some of the friction here could be removed?
You mean annotate a class with "pretend this class's name represents a value
type" and then implement the associated null checks in javac, even though we don't
actually have value types yet?
I'd expect that to run into a number of problems related to the fact that the
language model hasn't actually been updated to include primitive classes or
value types yet. Plus the lack of features like reference types (Foo.ref) would
be limiting for programmers who need them. Plus binary incompatibility—value
types need special encoding in class files, and those class files aren't legal
yet; when they are, you risk mismatches.
In this case I think the straightforward approach of just completing and
delivering the Valhalla features is better than trying to spin off a small
taste of them early.
You are right - there are more aspects to this than just null checks -
binary compatibility seems especially problematic.
Thanks for the explanation!
Maurizio
