Plan a 3.0 release

[ptitjes]

I propose that we plan a 3.0 release after the 2.1. This ticket is to discuss what we would like in a 3.0 release.

[ptitjes]

Here is what I propose:

• Add problem reporting mechanism
  • Introduce a Location object (source path + Position, comparable)
  • Introduce a Problem object (comparable based on Location)
  • Introduce a Reporter interface and an implementation that creates and stores problems
  • Make ParserException have a list of problems
• Make JavaParser a state-full object
  • Give access to the (exception-free) reporting mechanism
  • Keep static helpers that throw ParseException
• Introduce NoopVoidVisitor and NoopGenericVisitor
• Add a Checks class (that takes a reporter)
  • Implement no-cost semantic checks
    • Modifiers coherence
    • ...
  • Extract checks currently made inside the grammar (so that people can use them to check hand-created nodes)
    • Call the checks from the grammar
  • Implement a check(Node) (that uses a noop void visitor)
  • Implement a deepCheck(Node) (that uses a scanner void visitor)
• Lexical preservation
  • Introduce Lexeme class (begin and end position, kind, image)
  • Replace the four position integers in Node with a first and last Lexeme
  • Replace the constructor of AST node accordingly
  • Adapt the grammar to use the new constructors
    (All this is similar to what I've done in grammar-work)
• AST consistency consolidation
  • Remove MultiTypeParameter in favor of UnionType – Kill MultiTypeParameter and BaseParameter and introduce UnionType #111
  • Introduce ArrayType – Remove ReferenceType.arrayCount in favor of ArrayType #112
  • Change {Method&Constructor}Declaration.throws to be ClassOrInterfaceType
• Grammar enhancements
  • No conditionals as left-hand side of assignements – Conditional expression should not be accepted as left-hand side of assignment #109
  • Type annotations fixes – Annotations on types are not parsed and dumped correctly #107

[ptitjes]

I would add:

• Support source JDK version with reporting of non-conformant constructs

[matozoid]

Do we have issues for all of this?

[ptitjes]

Not yet. I was waiting for big objections (or approvals, additions...) before opening individual tickets.

[ftomassetti]

+1 for the Location object (source path + Position, comparable)

[matozoid]

That's an incredible amount of work!

[ftomassetti]

Should we update this one and open the corresponding issues for each feature? I think there are several interesting ideas, I am just not sure we can put together all the hours needed for implementing all of this so we should probably select some ideas and establish priorities.

[SmiddyPence]

I have moved this to the wiki for posterity. Roadmap

Some of the items will come out in the wash with existing issues, there are also a lot of additional bugs that have come to light from users since the explicit mention on the googlecode site.