Whiteboard results - Closures

Whiteboard results

Whiteboard results - Web framework

Whiteboard results - Language change

Two whiteboards were dedicated to language changes, with 10 ideas considered. A short example of each change was given, with votes being taken. The question each time was "Do you support this language change?".

Property declaration

Remove the need to write getter/setters, and raise the conceptual level of applications:

public class Person {
 public property String forename;
 public property int age;
}

The vote results were:

Property access

Access properties using simple dot notation:

public class Person {
 public property String forename;
 public property int age;
}
Person p = new Person();
p.forename = "Stephen";   // calls setter
String str = p.forename;  // calls getter

The vote results were:

Improve generics

Remove some issues around generics:

// this doesn't compile today - could be made to
public class MyClass {
 public void process(List<String> list) {...}
 public void process(List<Integer> list) {...}
}
// this doesn't compile today - could be made to
if (list instanceof List<String> { ... }

The vote results were:

Access List and Map using []

Use the [] operator to access List and Map:

List<String> list = ...
String first = list[0];

Map<String, Integer> map = ...
Integer value = map["Key"];

The vote results were:

Extension methods and chaining

Method chaining allows methods that return void to be chained in a similar style to StringBuffer. Extension methods allow the calling of static methods in the style of instance methods:

// current code
List<String> list = ...
Utils.sort(Utils.filter(list, param));

// with the language change
list.filter(param).sort();

The vote results were:

Note that two options for Yes were given, but for simplicity, I have grouped those together in the results above.

String switch

This allows the use of String in switch statements:

switch (str) {
  case "ONE": return 1;
  case "TWO": return 2;
  case "THREE": return 3;
}

The vote results were:

Typedef

This allows the aliasing of types:

import java.util.Map<String, Integer> as CodeValueMap;

The vote results were:

Multi-catch

This allows catching a set of exceptions in a single catch clause:

try {
} catch (IOException | SQLException ex) {
}

The vote results were:

Null-handling

This allows nulls to be handled in long expressions without causing a NullPointerException:

// current code
String result = a.b.c;    // can throw NPE
// with language change
String result = a?.b?.c;  // can't throw NPE

The vote results were:

Whiteboard photo