Hello Paul, hello Bill,
>>> I think it is useful to allow also Set and SortedSet. Sometimes the
>>> order is irrelevant and/or dublicates could or should be ignored for
>>> the app. I propose also to allow Collection.
> What would be the order and dups policy when Collection is specified?
> I don't think Collection should be allowed and the developer should be
> explicit about the ordering/dups through the Java type specified.
Doesn't matter, that means runtime environment is free to choose. If a
method requires a Collection, there is never a order defined.
If a method (in general) want to be as flexible as possible, it should
allows Collection. The idea was, to also allow this flexibility here.
> If we are trying to keep things immutable then should arrays of stuff
> should be allowed?
We can avoid the modification on Collections, so we should do that. If
we can't avoid this on arrays, doesn't matter ... (IMO)
The argument for me for the arrays is, that they could be iterated and
accessed very fast (compared to Lists). But if someone needs speed, he
should not use a specification, which requires a lot of using of
reflections ...
Bill, what do you say? You proposed the array.
Stephan