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>
> As for automatic downcasting in an assignment statement, I think
> it's a very bad idea.
<deleted>
> A fundamental design goal of the Java language is to find as
> many potential coding errors at compile time as possible, rather
> than at runtime. That's goodness.

The compiler would still check for 'inconvertible types', since the
object on the left must be able to be a subclass or superclass of the
object on the right.

List list=new ArrayList();
list.add("oops");
Map m=(Map)list.get(0);

What Java compiler will find a bug in the above code? They won't. So
(Map) is useless additional information since we know it will need to
be a Map assigned anyways, so (Map) for all practical purposes you are
trusting the compiler's arm.

Map m=(implicit)list.get(0) would accomplish the same thing and it
stills check for 'inconvertible types' at compile-time.

--
CB

> > Map m=(Map)list.get(0);
> Right now compiler complains here because it tries to tell you that you're
> trying to do something potentially dangerous and wants you to make clear
> that you *really* want to do it
Then I could do it via (implicit), like so:
Map m=(implicit)list.get(0);
But if it was so potentially dangerous, then why are we forced to do it so often?

cgbusch wrote:
>>>Map m=(Map)list.get(0);
>>
>>Right now compiler complains here because it tries to tell you that you're
>>trying to do something potentially dangerous and wants you to make clear
>>that you *really* want to do it
>
> Then I could do it via (implicit), like so:
> Map m=(implicit)list.get(0);
> But if it was so potentially dangerous, then why are we forced to do it so often?

Because a lot of these methods are defined as returning Object in order
to be as general as possible. It's up to the programmer to know what
kind of objects got stuffed into the collection and cast accordingly.
The JVM will very helpfully throw a runtime ClassCastException if you
get it wrong. Then again, you could always use instanceof in order to
determine whether what you were expecting is what you actually have.