Support for standard library polyfills

I really like the idea behind this project. What the frontpage does not mention, is that a valid Java 8 bytecode can’t still have a hard time running on actual JRE8 because of missing pieces of the standard library like List.of().

So the idea is that the plugin could somehow rewrite references of java.util.List#of() to a different static method in a specially created polyfill library.

What do you think?

[bsideup]

It also worth mentioning that the language features enabled by Jabel do not require any new stdlib methods btw

[tlinkowski]

Hi, you might be interested in UniJ, which provides a backport of JDK 9+ APIs in the form of a facade.

E.g. UniLists.of(1, 2) corresponds to List.of(1, 2). At runtime, it delegates to:

• either List.of(1, 2) (for JDK 9+)
• or Collections.unmodifiableList(Arrays.asList(1, 2)) (for JDK 8)

If:

• you added a dependency on UniJ
• and Jabel could rewrite List.of references into UniLists.of ones

you’d achieve the effect you want.

Instance methods (like Optional.stream()) would be much more problematic to rewrite, though.

Disclaimer: I’m the author of UniJ.