[Biojava-l] Location interface

[Forsch, Dan]

JSR #14,
http://java.sun.com/aboutJava/communityprocess/jsr/jsr_014_gener.html, will
provide parameterized types like C++ templates that should allow you to do
some of what you want.  There still wouldn't be operator overloading but you
could define plus() and minus() methods.  I couldn't tell if this one has a
release target yet but I believe I heard it will be in the next major
release (1.4?).  I personally am partial to strong typing and polymorphism,
but to each their own.

Dan Forsch, Principal Software Engineer
NetGenics, Inc.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matthew Pocock [mailto:mrp@sanger.ac.uk]
> Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 6:15 AM
> To: 'biojava-l@biojava.org'
> Subject: [Biojava-l] Location interface
> 
> The rational behind moving the binary operators is that Java has 
> extremely poor support for double-binding, and the current 
> code-base is 
> ickey.
> 
> We realy want to attach operators to tuples, not classes. 
> Imagine if we 
> could define and use methods on tuples and let the method 
> binding work 
> out as for the single-binding (inheritance) case. The tuples 
> could look 
> like arrays with individualy typed indecies. If tuples can implement 
> interfaces then one interface could be the 'operator overloadable' 
> interface, at which point we get safe overloading of binary operators 
> like + and -.
> 
> boolean ol = [locA, locB].overlaps();
> 
> abstract tuple Location, Locaion {
>    abstract boolean overlaps();
>    abstract boolean equals();
> 
>    ...
> }
> 
> and provide implementations like this:
> 
> tuple RangeLocation, RangeLocation {
>    boolean overlaps() {
>      return !(this[0].getMin() > this[1].getMax() ||
>               this[0].getMax() < this[1].getMin());
>    }
> 
>    ...
> }
> 
> tuple RangeLocation, PointLocation {
>    boolean overlaps() {
>      return this[0].getMin() >= this[1].getMin() &&
>             this[0].getMax() <= this[1].getMin();
>    }
> 
>    ...
> }
> 
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