code review 99410046: spec: explicitly disallow blank methods in interface types

spec: explicitly disallow blank methods in interface types

The spec was unclear about whether blank methods should be
permitted in interface types. gccgo permits at most one, gc
crashes if there are more than one, go/types permits at most
one.

Discussion:

Since method sets of non-interface types never contain methods
with blank names (blank methods are never declared), it is impossible
to satisfy an interface with a blank method.

It is possible to declare variables of assignable interface types
(but not necessarily identical types) containing blank methods, and
assign those variables to each other, but the values of those
variables can only be nil.

There appear to be two "reasonable" alternatives:

1) Permit at most one blank method (since method names must be unique),
and consider it part of the interface. This is what appears to happen
now, with corner-case bugs. Such interfaces can never be implemented.

2) Permit arbitrary many blank methods but ignore them. This appears
to be closer to the handling of blank identifiers in declarations.
However, an interface type literal is not a declaration (it's a type
literal). Also, for struct types, blank identifiers are not ignored;
so the analogy with declarations is flawed.

Both these alternatives don't seem to add any benefit and are likely
(if only slightly) more complicated to explain and implement than
disallowing blank methods in interfaces altogether.

Fixes issue 6604.

[gri, 2014-05-22 17:09:57]

Hello r@golang.org, rsc@golang.org, ken@golang.org, iant@golang.org (cc:
golang-codereviews@googlegroups.com),

I'd like you to review this change to
https://code.google.com/p/go/

[gri, 2014-05-22 17:19:06]

Hello r@golang.org, rsc@golang.org, ken@golang.org, iant@golang.org (cc:
golang-codereviews@googlegroups.com),

Please take another look.

[r, 2014-05-22 17:32:15]

LGTM

i agree they should just be banned.

[rsc, 2014-05-22 17:42:43]

LGTM

[iant, 2014-05-22 19:03:22]

LGTM

Would be nice to have a test in the testsuite for this, but not before 1.3 is
out.

[gri, 2014-05-22 19:23:29]

*** Submitted as https://code.google.com/p/go/source/detail?r=15feabceaef4 ***

spec: explicitly disallow blank methods in interface types

The spec was unclear about whether blank methods should be
permitted in interface types. gccgo permits at most one, gc
crashes if there are more than one, go/types permits at most
one.

Discussion:

Since method sets of non-interface types never contain methods
with blank names (blank methods are never declared), it is impossible
to satisfy an interface with a blank method.

It is possible to declare variables of assignable interface types
(but not necessarily identical types) containing blank methods, and
assign those variables to each other, but the values of those
variables can only be nil.

There appear to be two "reasonable" alternatives:

1) Permit at most one blank method (since method names must be unique),
and consider it part of the interface. This is what appears to happen
now, with corner-case bugs. Such interfaces can never be implemented.

2) Permit arbitrary many blank methods but ignore them. This appears
to be closer to the handling of blank identifiers in declarations.
However, an interface type literal is not a declaration (it's a type
literal). Also, for struct types, blank identifiers are not ignored;
so the analogy with declarations is flawed.

Both these alternatives don't seem to add any benefit and are likely
(if only slightly) more complicated to explain and implement than
disallowing blank methods in interfaces altogether.

Fixes issue 6604.

LGTM=r, rsc, iant
R=r, rsc, ken, iant
CC=golang-codereviews
https://codereview.appspot.com/99410046