Excellent summary of the problems with this proposal. I have some comments below.

Jochen Theodorou wrote:

This is exactly what worried me. Because static typing goes through an entirely different mechanism, it would be both confusing and problematic for users. This is further complicated by the many users that would try to take their Groovy code and "make it faster" by adding static types. Suddenly dispatch rules would be completely different, and the code would break.

My opinion here is that it sounds like many people want Groovy features in Java for certain pieces of code. I think that's a great idea...if these features have proven useful we should consider adding them to Java or consider making a static-typed Java-like language that supports them if we can't push through actual Java language changes. Heck, even the javac compiler toolchain is open-source now, so we could build off that.

But don't try to turn Groovy into "Java with extras" just because it might solve a few performance problems. It wouldn't be Groovy.

This is the technique that has been proven to work in JRuby, and it would work for Groovy too. I'm willing to help make it happen (once I find my misplaced 8th day of the week).

- Charlie

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