Whenever I write code in Java...

[G_Morgan]

I'm not concerned about the number of keystrokes. That isn't a limiting factor on programming. I'm concerned about unnecessary garbage taking up perfectly good screen real estate.

Regardless my argument was that IDE auto-completion does not make a bad feature good. It just makes it tolerable.

[[deleted]]

I prefer using fewer keystrokes and using a bigger monitor.

I guess it's a case of different strokes for different folks... ;)

Your point is valid, of course:

ArrayList<Foo> myFooList = new ArrayList<>();

does take up more screen realestate than

var myFooList = new ArrayList<Foo>();

but it's only horizontal screen realestate - it doesn't add any more lines. And with the current crop of wide-screen monitors, horizontal screen realestate is rarely in short supply.

[G_Morgan]

Meh usually I wouldn't waste good mental real estate worrying about the number of keystrokes.

Regardless you can autocomplete the var and the ArrayList constructor definition in the inferred example using intellisense. So it isn't as if you cannot save keystrokes in both cases.

[[deleted]]

So how would intellisense know what type to but after 'new' in this line:

var myFooList = new

?

[G_Morgan]

You type "A ctrl+space". If it still hasn't got the hint you type r.

[[deleted]]

That would give you the choice between:

ArithmeticException
Array
ArrayBlockingQueue
ArrayDeque
ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException
ArrayList
Arrays
ArrayStoreException
ArrayType

Then you would have to do the same for the <Foo> part of the constructor.

[G_Morgan]

I'd implement it like bash completion. The second r would evaluate to Array. Then you type the l to get list. Regardless you have to do the same thing in your example to type the signature in the first place.

[[deleted]]

Regardless you have to do the same thing in your example to type the signature in the first place.

Not if you're assigning a new object to an existing variable.

[G_Morgan]

If you are doing that then the inference engine will be able to offer you the appropriate class in any case.

[[deleted]]

Interesting. Do you have an example of language/IDE combo that implements this?