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why is not JFace based on generics? [message #637789]

Mon, 08 November 2010 20:37

Luca Ferrari

Messages: 159
Registered: November 2009

Senior Member

Hi,
I'm just curious to understand why JFace does not exploit generics for viewers related classes (e.g., label providers and so on). I know that SWT uses arrays instead of collections for backward compatibility, but generics after all produces code that can be run even in jre < 1.5, and maybe using generics could give some advantages.
I guess there is a really good reason I cannot see here, after all I believe that other GUI libraries do not use generics too. What am I missing?

Thanks.

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Re: why is not JFace based on generics? [message #637828 is a reply to message #637789]

Tue, 09 November 2010 04:50

Prakash G.R.

Messages: 621
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

On 09/11/10 2:07 AM, Luca Ferrari wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm just curious to understand why JFace does not exploit generics for
> viewers related classes (e.g., label providers and so on). I know that
> SWT uses arrays instead of collections for backward compatibility, but
> generics after all produces code that can be run even in jre < 1.5, and
> maybe using generics could give some advantages.
> I guess there is a really good reason I cannot see here, after all I
> believe that other GUI libraries do not use generics too. What am I
> missing?
>
> Thanks.

Because all of the Platform UI code is still on Java 1.4

--
- Prakash
Platform UI Team, IBM

www.eclipse-tips.com

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