On 11/29/2012 05:50 AM, David Holmes wrote:
...
I don't agree that we need to describe what the default implementation
does, for two reasons:
1. Normal methods don't usually specify how they are implemented - it is
an implementation detail. The "default" simply indicates that this
method does have an implementation and you should expect that
implementation to obey the contract of the method.
2. It is not obvious to me that the JDK's choice for a default
implementation has to be _the_ only possible implementation choice. In
many/most cases there will be a very obvious choice, but that doesn't
mean that all suppliers of OpenJDK classes have to be locked in to that
choice.
This is certainly interesting, and something I've wondered for a while
now. If java.util.Iterator is to ever be fitted with a default
implementation of remove ( to throw UnsupportedOperationException ),
then it would clearly need to be part of the spec, and not an
implementation detail of OpenJDK. Otherwise, what's the point, every
developer will still have to implement it because they cannot be
guaranteed of it's behavior.
-Chris.
