Valhalla hackathon on Primitives in Generics using Sublime Text 3 with Javatar

After 10 years of software development and 2 years doing paperwork and meetings, last week I did something unexpected. I went to a Bulgarian Java User Group (BGJUG) event. All the guys there are deeply involved in the Java world… and beer drinking.

The topic was Primitives in Generics. Something that is being developed under the Valhalla project (incubator for advanced Java VM and Language feature candidates) and expected in Java 10, year 2018.

Basically, Primitives in Generics means that you can write to following code:

 

ArrayList<int> list = new ArrayList<>();*

or

public class MyClass <any T> {
…
}

MyClass<float> my = new MyClass<float>();

 

 *Currently there are some limitations for the List interface and Primitives in Generics due to some conflicts.

 After the guys got the beer on the table there was a presentation and an actual hackathon. We took out the laptops, downloaded and compiled Valhalla, started to code and see what happens. Compiling, running, analyzing java bytecode through the “old-school” command line.

Amazing was the editor we were using. Since Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA don’t support the new structures and special words in Valhalla we used Sublime Text 3 with Javatar which did a perfect job.

The presentation is available on the Valhalla home page (http://openjdk.java.net/projects/valhalla/).

I`m open for questions and ideas on the topic!

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