The source statement as proposed for coin did no more or no less than the -source flag that already exists (OK not quite true, see below). This is definitely in the spirit of coin, a small change. The only substantive change, over the current -source flag; would be that 'module' would be a normal keyword, not a context sensitive keyword. There is nothing in the source proposal that precludes, at some future date, linking the source version and the module version together. Your example of linking source version to module version is actually a good one for showing how the language can evolve with 'source'. We can make this very minimal change now, introduce a source statement as proposed, people, compilers, IDEs, etc. can make this small change practically in a short time. Then for 8 we can do more - that is the beauty of introducing a series of small changes rather than a few massive ones. Source is one way of allowing Java to evolve.
What happens when a language doesn't evolve is that it dies and also its platform dies with it. My day job is as a Scientist and this is exactly what happened to Fortran. They stopped evolving it and the new scientists moved on to newer languages and the old scientists kept saying "what is wrong with Fortran it was good enough in the 70s it is good enough now?". Now, even in science and engineering, Fortran is a niche player. Sure it still exists, sure old programs are still maintained, sure there are still some Fortran libraries going, but boy is it boring and dead! I want a bright vibrant exiting future for Java, not a stodgy old death. On Sep 18, 1:40 am, Alex Buckley <alex.buck...@sun.com> wrote: > On Sep 17, 5:38 am, Jess Holle <je...@ptc.com> wrote: > > > Joe Darcy recently cited discussion threads in which the source > > statement was supposedly found to be problematic. > > > I perused them -- and didn't see any substantive problems uncovered in > > the course of those discussions. > > > Personally I think a source statement would be a good thing. Otherwise > > if you have a large set of sources in a module you have to go through > > all sorts of shenanigans to compile some stuff with -source x and others > > with -source y. This configuration is unnecessarily complex and is > > fragile -- since the information is separate from the source files. > > A 'source' keyword is a terrible idea because it does not sufficiently > model the kinds of compatibility needed in practice. That is properly > the job of versioning in a module system. > > The bigger issue regarding Java language changes is that Sun is > expected to listen to thousands of ideas per year *and give detailed > responses as to how those ideas could be made workable*. > > Alex --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to javaposse@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
