On 08.03.2018 02:23, MG wrote:
Hi Daniel,
I agree that it does not make much sense to closely mirror the details
of the Java specifications in Groovy, but I still think that simply
treating var the same as def looses some potential for the static
compilation case, e.g.:
var myVar = new Foo()
myVar = 123 // Allowed when var === def, forbidden if myVar has type Foo
for the static compiler in Groovy we have
Foo x = new SubClassOfFoo()
x is seen as a type with a declaration type of Foo, with the current
compile time type of SubClassOfFoo. Here x = 1 is then not allowed,
because Integer is no subclass of Foo. But you are allowed to call
methods on x, that are defined only on SubClassOfFoo.
The "catch em all" superclass is of course Object:
Foo x = ...
x = 1 // compile error
Object x = new Foo()
x = 1 // no compile error
In that sense "def" is just an alias for Object and has zero special logic.
Obviously we just have to set declaration type = current compile time
type to get something, which is very near to the planed var in Java. But
this requires more than just changing the parser. This requires
something I can recognize as "var", to then apply the special logic in
the static compiler.
As http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/286 correctly mentions, type inference
is not magic, but in my mind this comes down to a 90+% solution again,
namely that covering the two cases:
1) var myVar = new Foo() // myVar is of type Foo
2) var myVar = myMethod() // myVar is of return type of myMethod
will cover a lot of ground, and I therefore believe it would be ok to
fall back to var/final === def in all other cases for now. If someone
wants to / has time, he can improve on this later.
unless you reassign, you would not notice the difference between current
def and the Java var, except for fields, but afaik there is no var allowed.
bye Jochen
