> For (2) the proposal I saw earlier said something like, we'd like for `new
> Object` to mean REFERENCE. I think that is a siren song, and this issue has
> been addressed by Brian's proposal to deal with `new Object` as a migration
> problem. Rather than suggesting to use some static factory instead (which
> works for plain instance creation but not for inner class creation) I think
> perhaps the user code should be migrated to use `new RefObject` and `new
> RefObject() { }` instead (at least if people want the reference semantics).
> But these are minor details
>
What I like about treating this as a migration problem is, that despite the
inconvenience, the resulting code is actually _a lot more clear_. The first
time I saw “new Object()” (that was a long time ago), I remember thinking “What
the heck is the point of that?”, until I realized that Objects had a secret
object identity. Whereas “new IdentityObject()” is more clear that you are
creating an instance _for the precise purpose of using its identity_.
So, while there is some migration pain, the resulting language is actually more
clear. I like that.
