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Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative?

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On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 8:54:58 AM UTC+1, Silvio wrote:
> On 11/25/2013 10:10 PM, Robert Klemme wrote:
> > On 25.11.2013 12:46, Silvio wrote:
> >
> > Annotations are one of the major innovations in the Java language.  The
> > fact that they can be abused (and are abused) for me is not criteria
> > enough to dislike or even ban the feature.  You wouldn't forbid knifes
> > even though a lot of people die from them, would you?
> >
> They are an innovation no doubt. In my opinion not for the better. I 
> consider annotations not so much a language feature but more of a 
> meta-language feature.

Yes, that's what they are: they allow to attach state to language artifacts which is not interpreted by the compiler but rather code (typically frameworks and libraries).

> Most annotations have no intrinsic semantics 
> inside the language (and the ones that do should have been converted 
> into proper language syntax).

That would certainly have made for a cleaner separation: syntax for language tools, annotations for all other.  I'm probably too pragmatic to see the missing separation as an important defect.

> They just add textual markers to the class files that frameworks, 
> libraries and tools can use to implement their logic.

Not only textual!  They are type safe and type safety is enforced by compiler and supported by IDEs.  This is a big advantage over usual "annotations" in comments!

> My complaint about 
> this is that it decouples these frameworks from the language semantics 
> and makes them complete black-boxes from the language perspective.

Yes, and that exactly is the strength of annotations!  Basically it allows to extend the language with features that would otherwise either require syntax and compiler changes for every one of them or have to be implemented in the language; in the latter case the nature of meta data would be lost because you would have to use ordinary Java classes and static fields to represent the same information.  Plus, you would have to do all the plumbing to associate meta data with classes (e.g. search for a public static member of a class with a specific type etc.).

> Even inside the current language could most of these tools have been 
> implemented just as conveniently without annotations (and without the 
> XML hell they where meant to replace).

I strongly disagree.  Just think of JPA for example.  It cannot work with some kind of meta data indicating the mapping from classes to tables etc.

> To poor library and framework designers annotations are not knifes, they 
> are hammers and every challenge these people come across looks like some 
> sort of nail.

Well, but I prefer to live in a world where we have the freedom to use these for good (and bad) than in a world without them.  For me advantages far outweight disadvantages.  I am a bit surprised: didn't you advocate .Net and C# which also has a similar mechanism with "C# attributes"?

> In time, mastering the annotations that come with their tools has 
> increasingly become an integral part of the job of Java programmers. In 
> my opinion that trend marks the decline of Java into obsolescence.

As you are not surprised I do not share that view.  On the contrary: just look at how much JEE5 and later improves over earlier J2EE!

Kind regards

	robert

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Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Saxo <jeti789@web.de> - 2013-11-25 03:09 -0800
  Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-11-25 12:46 +0100
    Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Saxo <jeti789@web.de> - 2013-11-25 05:20 -0800
    Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2013-11-25 22:10 +0100
      Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Saxo <jeti789@web.de> - 2013-11-25 14:34 -0800
      Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-11-26 08:54 +0100
        Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2013-11-26 00:29 -0800
          Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-11-26 15:29 +0100
            Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-11-26 21:55 -0500
              Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-11-27 08:59 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Joerg Meier <joergmmeier@arcor.de> - 2013-11-27 10:41 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-11-28 12:48 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? leif.roar@invalid.com (Leif Roar Moldskred) - 2013-11-28 16:28 -0600
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-11-29 00:03 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Saxo <jeti789@web.de> - 2013-11-29 00:41 -0800
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-11-29 12:05 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Saxo <jeti789@web.de> - 2013-11-29 03:51 -0800
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-11-29 16:44 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-11-29 16:48 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2013-12-02 06:33 -0800
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-12-02 15:50 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-12-02 16:26 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2013-12-02 21:07 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-12-02 23:33 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? markspace <markspace@nospam.nospam> - 2013-12-02 18:07 -0800
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-12-03 08:59 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Saxo <jeti789@web.de> - 2013-12-03 00:14 -0800
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-12-03 09:42 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Saxo <jeti789@web.de> - 2013-12-03 02:58 -0800
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2013-12-03 20:55 +0000
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Saxo <jeti789@web.de> - 2013-12-04 00:12 -0800
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom2@eastlink.ca> - 2013-12-14 03:31 -0400
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2013-12-14 10:11 +0000
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2013-12-14 17:39 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2013-12-14 16:52 +0000
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom2@eastlink.ca> - 2013-12-14 13:47 -0400
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2013-12-14 23:55 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Sebastian <news@seyweiler.dyndns.org> - 2013-12-04 10:39 +0100
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom2@eastlink.ca> - 2013-12-14 03:56 -0400
  Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? v_borchert@despammed.com (Volker Borchert) - 2013-11-26 21:28 +0000
    Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2013-11-26 23:29 +0100
      Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? v_borchert@despammed.com (Volker Borchert) - 2013-11-27 05:13 +0000
        Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2013-11-27 22:57 +0100
          Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? v_borchert@despammed.com (Volker Borchert) - 2013-11-29 23:22 +0000
            Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2013-11-30 14:41 +0100
            Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Joshua Cranmer 🐧 <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2013-11-30 16:49 -0600
        Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Joshua Cranmer 🐧 <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2013-11-27 23:07 -0600
          Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2013-11-28 23:41 +0000
            Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Joshua Cranmer 🐧 <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2013-11-29 00:08 -0600
              Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2013-11-29 16:49 +0000
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Joshua Cranmer 🐧 <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2013-11-30 16:46 -0600
                Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2014-02-14 15:36 +0000
          Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? v_borchert@despammed.com (Volker Borchert) - 2013-11-29 23:37 +0000
  Re: Alternatives languages on the JVM: which one or is there no alternative? Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-11-28 12:50 -0800

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