Re: class and type values

[Jim White <jim at pagesmiths dot com>]

Per Bothner wrote:

> First, my impression is that some Kawa programmers are
> confused by the distinction between standard java.lang.Class
> objects, and the more general gnu.bytecode.ClassType objects.
> ...
> This may be surprising to people; at least that is my impression.
>
> So one idea is to change Kawa so that the result of evaluating
>   <java.util.Vector>
> is a java.lang.Class value, rather than a gnu.bytecode.ClassType value.
> Similarly, the name declared by a define-simple-class would be a
> j.l.Class value, not a ClassType value.

The principle of least surprise is a strong one, and I endorse the 
change on that basis.  The long sought change so that "Foo" instances 
are java.lang.String is needed for the same reason.

The buzz around scripting languages is a great opportunity for Kawa 
("the best thing for Java that no one has ever heard of") to get some 
wider adoption.  One small item that is worthwhile is adding JSR-223 
support:

http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2SE/Desktop/scripting/

I've recently done a little investigation into Groovy (which made its 
"1.0" release last month) and am quite impressed with its expressive 
power in minimal syntax.  It is worth looking at to see how far Java 
features can be extended in an integrated fashion (particularly 
GroovyBeans + MOP and Collections).

http://groovy.codehaus.org/Collections
http://groovy.codehaus.org/Groovy+Categories
http://groovy.codehaus.org/Using+the+Proxy+Meta+Class

Jim