Wouldn't it be nice if there was word from RIM, following all these complaints and problems ...

Question

... you know a word like 'sorry'.

Answer 1

Ok, first i agree with what you are saying (all), i'm just not happy about it. Here's an example.
I've got a class that provides an LDap DirContext, through a "get" type method. Sometimes I'd like this class to maintain a persistent connection to the ldap server (through this DirContext) other times I wan't the connection to be recreated each time. Either way, the user uses the same interface to get this objects so:
interface LDAPProvider
DirContext getDirectoryContext();
When it's in persistent mode, it just returns a member variable, when not it creates a new one.
Well, I certainly don't want the user calling close on this returned object, as it may be that i'm maintaining a persistent connection. I also do want them to call close in the case that it is not a persistent connection.
So, i do
interface MyLDAPProvider
DirContext getDirectoryContext();
void releaseDirectoryContext( DirContext ctx );
and hope the user calls my method and not close... Which is just plain ugly and dangerous.
Alternately i create a DirContext implementing object (luckily i can cause this is an interface, what to do if this is a class that's final) and use aggregation, and implement all the DirContext methods, yuck, just to get the one close behavior. Also oogley
I really just want to do, (get out the mallots)
ctx.extendInterface( new DirContext()
private MyLDAPProvider lp = getTheAboveProviderSomeHow();
public void close()
if (!lp.isPersistent())
super.close();
}