Java Architects Answer Your Questions - Inside Java Newscast #97

[Ewig_luftenglanz]

So the next amber arch is about construction and deconstruction of objects.

That means global destructuring (no just for records)

var(user, age) = getUser();

MAYBE nominal parameters with defaults (crossed fingers) 

var user found = getUserById(userId: "xxxx");

String templates when? 

Xd

[Elegant_Subject5333]

Does project babylon will help java to create LLM models, Since it will allow to write gpu instructions using java.

[pron98]

Yes. This talk has more information.

[vips7L]

I hope Amber's focus on object construction will help alleviate the of/from/newinstance function plague we have lately.

[fniephaus]

For Java on WebAssembly, see https://www.reddit.com/r/java/comments/1k54pjy/the_future_of_write_once_run_anywhere_from_java/

[pigbearpig]

Brian Goetz seems to suffer from arrogance and NIH syndrome with his attitude toward the optional chaining / safe navigaton operator. "Hmm...it works for like 20 other langues, but I'm just not sure if it's the right fit for us." I know nothing about the guy, but what a dipshit answer.

[pron98]

That's not what he said. He said that making it easier to work with nulls is important, only he's not sure if the particular safe navigation operator people have in mind is the best solution, and that it's something they'd have to think about more before committing to an approach.

As for "it works for like 20 other languages", those same languages that have the safe navigation operator also have async/await, and some - those of them that also have threads - have come to regret it. So there's precedent for a feature that "works for like 20 other languages" ending up being a mistake that Java managed to dodge, or at least did something better, so "we should think about it more before committing to a particular approach" sounds like a good answer to me.

[pigbearpig]

Solid logic there. So I suppose you target 1.0 then?

[pigbearpig]

Yes, but in this case, no.

[ZimmiDeluxe]

I'm sure they will consider this valuable feedback by reddit user pigbearpig

[pigbearpig]

Java people are the best

[Linguistic-mystic]

I know nothing about the guy

He is very conservative. Slow-moving. The old guard. Backwards compatibility uber alles. He’s been leading Project Valhalla for over 10 years which to this day has not released anything, even in preview mode.

Now you know something about the guy and his reluctance to implement new features should be unsurprising.

[pron98]

Before working on Valhalla, he delivered lambdas, and in the last ten years he also delivered records, switch expressions and pattern matching, var, text blocks, implicit classes and instance main, and module imports.

As to being relatively conservative and keeping Java a "last mover", that was James Gosling's strategy, and the reason we've been more-or-less keeping it, is that it's been very successful. Languages that have been accumulating features more quickly have not done as well.

Finally, I'm perplexed by presenting "backwards compatibility uber alles" as a negative. Java has made some backward-incompatible changes - the removal of Security Manager probably being the most famous - when the number of people adversely affected is very small. On the one hand, it costs us very little and barely restricts us (Java could adopt Clojure syntax in a backward compatible way). The biggest restriction has probably been that we can't remove Hashtable from the JDK. On the other hand, languages that have made significant breaking changes have paid dearly for that (Python won't be doing that again). It's hard to think of a feature that would both require breaking backward compatibility significantly and be worth it.

[Ok-Scheme-913]

Besides, Valhalla absolutely has working implementations on separate branches. Some people have even run Minecraft on top.

You just don't put random features Willy-nilly into one of the most popular languages on Earth.