[infinispan-dev] Generalizing Externalizer interface

As part of https://jira.jboss.org/browse/ISPN-246, we're gonna be making Externalizer interface (http://docs.jboss.org/infinispan/4.2/apidocs/org/infinispan/marshall/Exte...) even more public allowing users to provide their own externalizer implementations. I had a brief scan and it seems like (or so should be unless it's a very strange externalizer), that all Externalizers are symmetric. IOW, whatever type the writeObject() object is passed, that's the type we return in readObject(). So, I was thinking of generalizing Externalizer to look something like this: interface Externalizer<T> { void writeObject(ObjectOutput output, T object) throws IOException; T readObject(ObjectInput input) throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException; } Does anyone have any objections? This would safe a lot of casting in implementations, making externalizers easier to code and type safer. Cheers, p.s. This would only be included in 5.x. -- Galder Zamarreño Sr. Software Engineer Infinispan, JBoss Cache