Structs

[Mark Thornton]

Cas, you could join the JCP (now free for an individual), and submit a JSR proposing the addition of something like http://jade.dautelle.com/api/com/dautelle/util/Struct.html to the java.nio package with the intention of it being included in J2SE 6.0 (Mustang) which is now the earliest possible point for such a change.
Of course adding such a class is the easy bit, you then have to hope that JIT writers give some attention to it so that performance is optimised.
As this does not require a language change, there ought to be a reasonable chance of success.

Dautelle's class isn't perfect for this purpose, but it does represent a reasonable starting point (and is public domain).

[princec]

I'm a bit thinly stretched atm... would need a few others to pull the rope with me. Such as yourself and shawnkendall and blah3 perhaps.

Cas

[blahblahblahh]

I'm a bit thinly stretched atm... would need a few others to pull the rope with me. Such as yourself and shawnkendall and blah3 perhaps.

Cas

Same here. I could certainly participate, but for the next few months only passively (i.e. mainly responding, rather than starting things).

Is it just me or does the dautelle class look a bit disturbingly complicated?

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Mark Thornton]

Is it just me or does the dautelle class look a bit disturbingly complicated?

The public interface seems reasonably simple to me.

[princec]

Way more complicated than it needs to be. It's got to be simple enough to implement in the VM in both software (as a fallback) and using clever optimisations into machine code.

Cas

[William Denniss]

I've added my 3 votes to it...

Shame this missed Tiger.

Will.

[shawnkendall]

Well, Structs have made it into the Top 10 RFEs, and still no REPLY from Sun.

On the up side, Java 6 (Mustang) is having some discussion.
Let's get those votes in, tell your friends!!!

Top 25 RFEs:
http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/top25_rfes.do

Structs RFE:
http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4820062

[JasonB]

Errggh.  Reading the comments at the bug parade really sets my teeth on edge.  It's like Slashdot.  Only not as funny.

When is Sun going to implement a rule that says you can't submit comments on an RFE unless you:

a) have been developing more than just in VB before you moved to Java
b) have more than 3 brain cells to rub together at any one moment in time.

Frankly I wish I had a spaceship so I could start tracking down these people and telling them just what I thought of them (pathetic Douglas Adams reference, in case it wasn't completely obvious)

[cfmdobbie]

Assuming things continue like this, we should organise a party on the 18th Feb to celebrate 2 years of Sun ignoring their community.

[shawnkendall]

They're really quite busy you know. ;-)

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[cfmdobbie]

True, but how long would it take an engineer to read through the proposal, and do something, even if that thing is to respond "need more info", or to decide it's unnecessary and to remove it?

Surely someone at Sun could have found ten minutes somewhere in the last two years?

(Half tongue-in-cheek, half tragically serious.)