A Proposal for Native Java Language Support for Handling Asynchronous Events

Abstract

During early stages of computer software development, depending on the methodology employed, developers usually create the application’s initial skeleton based on previously gathered requirements and on generated diagrams. When counting purely on what is provided by languages such as Java, developers tend to come up only with synchronous method calls, making use of coding tricks to achieve asynchronous behavior, which usually disrupts the original system model by adding a series of undesired side-effects such as unnecessary class coupling and error-prone constructions. This work proposes an extension to the Java language to allow for both executing asynchronous methods and handling asynchronous events occurring during normal execution, as a straightforward, class coupling-free and native alternative. With this extension it is expected that developers can natively use asynchronous communication from the beginning of the development cycle without having to make structural modifications to the original system.