Count your blessings!

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Paul D. Anderson wrote:
> If you think it is difficult to persuade Walter to adopt your latest
> idea for improved syntax or new language features -- try getting a
> change into Java.
> 
> JavaOne 2009 is just concluded. The Java community is moving toward
> release of JDK 7. It's overdue and underwhelming. Project Coin
> (http://openjdk.java.net/projects/coin/) exists "to determine what
> set of small language changes should be added to JDK 7". Joe Darcy
> (http://blogs.sun.com/darcy/) is the lead on Project Coin. He has
> posted the slides for his presentation at JavaOne:
> http://blogs.sun.com/darcy/resource/JavaOne/J1_2009-TS-4060.pdf.
> 
> A couple of quick impressions:
> 
> 1. The list of changes is small and shrinking. Only five will make
> the cut.
> 
> 2. Many of the requested syntax changes already exist in D. (Of
> course.)
> 
> 3. He explains (repeatedly) the amount of work required to make a
> "small" change. This is the primary justification for the shortness
> of the list.
> 
> 4. His stance with regard to changes is this: Don't explain why a
> change shouldn't be kept out ("It's trivial.", "Everybody does it.",
> "It's intuitive."), but rather why it should be put in. Give a clear
> statement of what's proposed, how to implement it, and a list of
> reasons why it should be included.
> 
> There are some lessons for us there, I think. (I don't mean to
> criticize anyone or any suggestions that have been made. Just to
> point out some of the things we all ought to consider. And to remind
> us that having a forum where we can discuss changes and have them
> considered by a lot of intelligent, interested people is a rare
> thing.)

Pretty cool slides. Some highlights I found interesting:

* split() should be the inverse of join() as Brad suggested

* that "why don't we" is the right thing to ask instead of "why don't 
you" :o)

* there is a strong momentum of lightweight iterators

* finally they seem to have heard of the STL in slides 36 and 37

* they finally see the naked emperor on slide 56 yet incredibly they 
still manage to continue doing precisely the wrong thing on slide 57; 
this one is enormously vexing to me

* what can we do about the feature on slide 33?

* as always enums are more complicated than they seem

* dangerously close to auto on slide 64; you'd wonder what would it take 
to make that penny drop :o)

* error text on slide 68 is longer than the error text on slide 67 that 
it's supposed to improve on

* there is nothing to improve threads, further demotivating support for 
Deadlock-Oriented Programming (DOP) in D


Andrei