Cedric on type erasure

I've been meaning to get around to posting on type erasure, and Cedric Beust beat me to it:

The main problem is that reified generics would be incompatible with the current collections.... The extra type information also impacts the interoperability between languages within the JVM but also outside of it.

I completely agree. I used to rail on erasure until I got more experience with it.

The interoperability issue is one big reason I now like erasure. With erased types, the interop layer uses only a very simple type system. Knowledge of complicated type systems stays within the compilers for individual languages.

An additional reason is that it puts the cost of type checking in the compiler rather than in the runtime. With erased types, the compiler works hard to do its type checking, and if it signs off, the code is known to be type safe. At runtime, the types disappear and the code runs at full speed.

This property is more than just pretty. It is very helpful to an engineer trying to build anything using the language. When you write code, you want to know how it is going to perform. With erasure, the things you write convert directly to machine code, just with extra details added such as which variable goes in which register. With reification, you end up with extra crud being inserted everywhere. To understand performance under reified types, you have to reason about this additional type crud. You'd rather not have to.

A major milestone for Scala+GWT

Stephen Haberman has announced that the majority of features in GWT's "Showcase" app are now available to Scala code as well. Aaron Novstrup did the original port to Scala, and Stephen's recent revamp of the GWT import code has gotten this much more functionality working.

Grzegorz Kossakowski has posted a compiled version on Dropbox for anyone that would like to click around in the final deployed version. A few of the things you will see working are:

• Generators (see the "source code" tab)
  
• Internationalization
  
• Code splitting
  
• Numerous built-in widgets
  

Scala+GWT still requires a lot of handholding to do anything with it, but this is a major milestone. Kudos to everyone who contributed!

Professors' letter against PROTECT-IP

A number of professors have signed a letter to the U.S. Congress opposing Protect IP:

The undersigned are 108 professors from 31 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico who teach and write about intellectual property, Internet law, innovation,and the First Amendment. We strongly urge the members of Congress to reject the PROTECT-IP Act (the "Act"). Although the problems the Act attempts to address-–online copyright and trademark infringement–-are serious ones presenting new and difficult enforcement challenges, the approach taken in the Act has grave constitutional infirmities, potentially dangerous consequences for the stability and security of the Internet's addressing system, and will undermine United States foreign policy andstrong support of free expression on the Internet around the world.

The most important point raised in the letter is that it is a violation of free speech. Forgetting the constitutional issue in the U.S., isn't it a bad way for people to interact online? Shutting down a DNS address is much like cutting a person's phone access, something that is simply not done unless the person is about to be arrested. The authors accurately call it an "Internet death sentence". It's far overboard.

The letter also raises the issues with secure DNS, but I believe this is a counter-productive argument. Secure DNS is a gift to anyone who wants to cut off DNS records. Sure, PROTECT-IP as it stands might not work, but all that means is that Secure DNS version 2 will be updated to have a government back door. The problems of PROTECT-IP are not technical.

Most of all, I really wish people could be more creative about digital copyright. You can copy bits, but you can't copy skill. Thus, we would do better to sell skill than to sell the bits that result from them. We can make that change, but expect Hollywood to fight it.