New version of the prototype (1.2) now available!

Question

A new version of the generics prototype has been
posted at
http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/earlyAccess/adding_generics/

Answer 1

Were covariant return types removed from the compiler? I tried compiling this code:
import java.lang.reflect.*;
class Base implements Cloneable {
    public Base clone() { return null; }
class Derived extends Base {
    public Derived clone() { return null; }
public class Generic {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        Method m = Derived.class.getDeclaredMethod("clone", new Class[] { });
        System.out.println(m.getReturnType());
}And got these errors:
Generic.java:4: clone() in Base cannot override clone() in java.lang.Object; att
empting to use incompatible return type
found : Base
required: java.lang.Object
public Base clone() { return null; }
^
Generic.java:8: clone() in Derived cannot override clone() in Base; attempting t
o use incompatible return type
found : Derived
required: Base
public Derived clone() { return null; }
^
2 errors
I think this same program compiled without error with the first version of the generic compiler.