2.8 questions

Hello Blair:

> Are there parts of 2.8 that are pretty stable that Scala team would
> like feedback now on, such as on the collection API?

Yes! We are happy to have feedback on all the new Scala 2.8 features,
including the new collections library, named arguments, and the new
interactive Scala shell. The improved Swing library and the
continuations plugin are still in a state of flux, but if you feel
adventurous, we are keen on user feedback, even at early stages of
development.

If you do not wish to invest much energy in features that will still
change, you could concentrate, for now, on named arguments. On the
other hand, because the new Scala collections library is such a large
and far-reaching change, we need feedback on that part more than on any
other. Also, we are quite confident its current general shape is more
or less what will get into 2.8, although many smaller things will still
change. In that sense, it is the perfect moment to give your input on
that library.

> How does the Scala team want 2.8 feedback? Emails to a mailing list
> (which one) or formal tickets. I already have a few comments I would
> want logged somewhere for someone to take a look at.

Posts on the "internals" mailing list and formal Trac tickets are the
two most suitable channels. With Trac, your contribution will always be
reviewed by a member of the Scala team ... eventually. On the internals
mailing list, you are likely to get fast feedback to your contribution
and you can always post a Trac ticket later. As far as I know, most
active Scala developers are reading the internals mailing list quite
regularly.

Cheers,
Gilles.

2.8 questions? What is 4/5 of a question? A HA HA that's gold.

If you're looking to exercise stuff in trunk, I've checked in lots o'
stuff the design of which I considered tentative and to be refined based
on feedback, but since I have as yet collected close to zero feedback
those classes mostly remain as I checked them in.

Now that could be because they simply cannot be improved, but just in
case that is not the entire reason, here are some classes in the library
which git blame tells me I originated or materially altered.

scala.BigDecimal
scala.BigInt
scala.GenericRange
scala.annotation.{ tailrec, switch }
scala.StringBuilder
scala.collection.script._
scala.collection.*MapProxy
scala.Numeric
scala.Ordering
scala.util.control.Exception
scala.reflect.{ Invocation, RichClass }
scala.util.ScalaClassLoader
scala.util.Hashable
scala.xml.XML
scala.xml.pull.XMLEventReader

Ideally we would place the trying emphasis on anything which differs
from the implementation in 2.7.5.

Thanks,