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0 pointshyperpape2y ago0 comments

Brian Goetz has written on the subject. https://stackoverflow.com/a/29494337

I think you can’t look at the past 5 years and the features that are being floated for Java 21 and future releases and think fear of change is the issue—the language is now changing rapidly.

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rogerkeays2y ago· 1 in thread

Thanks for the link. I've been trying to find the canonical answer to this question myself. There's the philosophical standpoint: API designers should control their APIs, and the technical: poor reflective discoverability, poor discoverability through documentation, not overrideable, require ad-hoc conflict-management rules.

I like his use of the word should, because as we all know it really means won't. I should exercise more, I should stop trolling people on reddit. API designers should control their APIs.

As for the technical objections, I think the conflict-management rules hold the most weight, but this problem is no more difficult than any other in language design. "not overrideable" is a feature, not a bug (can we please give up on behavioural inheritance already?), and discoverability already sucks. I mean, I still use duckduckgo to find javadocs.

zeedude2y ago

My sentiments exactly. The “API designers should control their APIs” one is my favorite and one of the more ridiculous things I’ve heard him say, which is saying something. It’s beyond humor, though, that all of his reasons are fallacies.

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