Also, IMHO it is overdue: not short circuiting (as today) is totally redundant.  Is there a reason this wasn't specified for BV 1.0?

"When @ReportAsSingleViolation is present, short circuit."

so

@Size(5)

@Pattern("[0-9]{5}")

@Constraint(validatedBy=BusinessPostCodeValidator.class) // expensive; query explodes if size > DB column length

@ReportAsSingleViolation // only query DB if @Size and @Pattern pass

public @interface PostCode { ...

    String message() default "not a valid postal code";

}

If different messages are needed, then @GroupSequence works but as Cemo says is unwieldy, and furthermore in practice breaks when combined with group inheritance (which is very natural and useful).  So...2nd suggestion:

"Allow @GroupSequence to be combined with interface inheritance in the obvious way."

(OK, "obvious" has a lot of nasty edge cases, but let me demonstrate why this would be a good change:)

Currently the following gives wacky and IMHO wrong results (test case available on request).  A close reading of BV 1.0 spec shows @GroupSequence and inheritance are incompatible...but the interactions are not intuitive:

@GroupSequence({Name1.class, Name2.class, Name3.class})

interface Names {

    interface Name1 {}

    interface Name2 {}

    interface Name3 {}

}

@GroupSequence({Surname1.class, Surname2.class, Surname3.class})

interface Surnames {

    interface Surname1 {}

    interface Surname2 {}

    interface Surname3 {}

}

interface BusinessValidations extends Names, Surnames {}

// At least the client wouldn't have to see all the ugliness.

// Maintenance, extensibility improved...but the following doesn't work!

// Currently no warning/error; only discover failure by test cases.

validator.validate(account, BusinessValidations.class);

From my perspective proposal #1 would get 80% of the way, and #2 would get the rest as well as solve some very wacky (buggy?) interactions I've observed in my year+ of using BV 1.0.  [There are other, more subtle ways that @GroupSequence messes with inheritance -- even when used in unrelated groups passed to #validate(...) -- that I'd be happy to move to a different topic.]