On 30/11/2012 02:03, David Holmes wrote:
On 30/11/2012 12:44 AM, Chris Hegarty wrote:
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.
I think optional methods are a bit of a special case here because they
don't have to work.
It's the end user of a class that needs to understand if they can use
remove() to actually do a removal. The developer of the class can
inherit whatever default implementations Iterator provides, as long as
they don't mind what they get. If they do mind ie they need a real
remove(), then they will have to implement it themselves and in the
process document that fact. The end user has to look at the docs for the
concrete class and follow through to determine whether it's
iterator().remove() is optional or not.
Put another way, a default method is great for adding a new method to
types that have not yet been revised to handle the new method. As a
developer once you revise your class you should make a conscious
implementation choice in my opinion and not rely on the default unless
you truly don't care what it does.
Sorry David, I've not been following lambda that closely, but (in my
opinion) if default methods do not, or cannot, have defined semantics
then I really think it is limiting. Maybe Iterator is a bad example, but
I will continue with it anyway. In many cases developers of
iterator().remove() want it to throw, if this is not defined in
Iterator's default remove method then every Iterator subclass will still
have to define its own remove that throws. For this particular case at
least (if it were to ever happen), I would like to see specification
added to remove that defines the default implementation.
-Chris.
But maybe we kid ourselves when we give this illusion of flexibility in
implementation.
David
-Chris.
