At last a thread I know something about!

Andreas is right. Java's generics were designed to be backward-compatible at runtime. At compile time, using generics in a non-generic way will issue compiler warnings that can be ignored.


-- Phil Heller
Author: Ground-Up Java, Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Andreas Prlic <ap3@sanger.ac.uk> 

> 
> >> These are good points. Can we generify interfaces without 
> >> breaking them? 
> 
> 
> 
> I don;t think that adding generics will break anything, e.g. 
> 
> old code: 
> 
> public interface MyTest { 
> public Set getFeatures() 
> } 
> 
> then some code that uses this: 
> 
> public void myFoo(){ 
> 
> MyTest test = new MyTestImpl(); 
> 
> Set features = test.getFeatures(); 
> } 
> 
> this call will not break, even if we change the MyTest interface to: 
> 
> public Set getFeatures() 
> 
> MyTestImpl will get some warnings (in my eclipse), to ensure the type 
> safety, but that is all. 
> 
> Andreas 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> 
> Andreas Prlic Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute 
> Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SA, UK 
> +44 (0) 1223 49 6891 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is operated by Genome Research 
> Limited, a charity registered in England with number 1021457 and a 
> company registered in England with number 2742969, whose registered 
> office is 215 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE. 
> _______________________________________________ 
> Biojava-l mailing list - Biojava-l@lists.open-bio.org 
> http://lists.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/biojava-l 

