On Jun 14, 2017 4:28 AM, "Benedikt Ritter" <brit...@apache.org> wrote:
I’d like to have feedback for CLI-277 [1], especially whether it will affect BC. Clirr is happy with this changes, to I suppose it is fine to merge this? [1] https://github.com/apache/commons-cli/pull/13 < https://github.com/apache/commons-cli/pull/13> The changes look like they ought to be ok, but I need to check on something that isn't a tablet. In general, going from raw to generic is easy, since the type erasure are the same, but changing things once they are generic gets harder. As des Rivers et. al. (2007,2017) note: But, also bear in mind that there are severe constraints on how a type or method that already is generic can be compatibly evolved with respect to its type parameters (see the tables above). So if you plan to generify an API, remember that you only get one chance (release), to get it right. In particular, if you change a type in an API signature from the raw type "List" to "List<?>" or "List<Object>", you will be locked into that decision. The moral is that generifying an existing API is something that should be considered from the perspective of the API as a whole rather than piecemeal on a method-by-method or class-by-class basis. https://wiki.eclipse.org/Evolving_Java-based_APIs_2#Turning_ non-generic_types_and_methods_into_generic_ones These guidelines are one of the best reference sources for information on compatibility. Definitely more comprehensible than the JLS.
