Common accessor for private State

[Niclas Hedhman]

Gang,

I tend to use private state a lot, in a hidden interface within the
composite. I end up writing,

@Mixins( PersonMixin.class )
public interface Person
{
    String name();
    Person spouse();

    interface State
    {
        Property<String> name();
        Association<Person> spouse();
    }

    class PersonMixin
    {
        @This State state;

        public String name()
        {
            return state.name().get();
        }

        public Person spouse()
        {
            return state.spouse().get();
        }
    }
}


I find this being too much boilerplate and have been thinking of whether it
should be fixed. I am proposing that we create a "Decorator" (better name?)
all the way into the API to support this.

@Mixins( PersonMixin.class )
public interface Person
{
    String name();
    Person spouse();

    interface State
    {
        Property<String> name();
        Association<Person> spouse();
    }

    class PersonMixin extends DefaultAssociationStateDecorator
    {
        PersonMixin( @This State state )
        {
            super( state );
        }
    }
}

But then, why not expand on this and support Spring-style getter/setters as
well?

@Mixins( PersonMixin.class )
public interface Person
{
    String getName();
    Person getSpouse();
    void setSpouse( Spouse spouse );

    interface State
    {
        Property<String> name();
        Association<Person> spouse();
    }

    class PersonMixin extends SpringBeanAssociationStateDecorator
    {
        PersonMixin( @This State state )
        {
            super( state );
        }
    }
}

It is a relatively simple implementation, quite efficient in terms of
execution, and the main question for me is where to put it;
  a. Core API (my choice)
  b. In a library
  c. Keep it to myself.

WDYT?
-- 
Niclas Hedhman, Software Developer
http://zest.apache.org - New Energy for Java