Consider turning `Context` functions into properties

[javalin]

Consider turning `Context` functions into properties

[tipsy]

Been re-visiting this idea at least a dozen times. There are a lot of issues, such as getters/setters, visibility form Java, the loss of the fluent API, performance...

I might be wrong about some of these things, so please feel free to correct me:

Java/Kotlin interop

To convert status() to a property, we'd need something like:

var status: Int
    get() = servletResponse.status
    set(status) {
        servletResponse.status = status
    }

@Deprecated(level = DeprecationLevel.HIDDEN, message = "Java facing API")
fun status(): Int = servletResponse.status

@Deprecated(level = DeprecationLevel.HIDDEN, message = "Java facing API")
fun status(statusCode: Int): Context {
    servletResponse.status = statusCode
    return this
}

This would make it work in Kotlin, but the Java would see status(), getStatus() and setStatus(). You could always remove the Java-targeted functions and let Java use get/set, but then you lose fluency (setters in Kotlin can only return Unit)

This would also make it harder for people to port their app from Java to Kotlin.

Loss of fluency

Even if you keep the Java-targeted functions, you lose the fluent syntax in Kotlin, and while this is not really idiomatic, it's better to let people choose between:

ctx.status(401).result("Unauthorized")

and

ctx.apply {
    status(401)
    result("Unauthorized")
}

Instead of forcing:

ctx.apply {
    status = 401
    result = "Unauthorized"
}

Performance

Converting to properties will initialize a lot of things when the context is created, which most people won't use.

Source code complexity

The project will be harder to understand

Conclusion (?)

Either don't do this, or only do it for the request object, which doesn't have setters. The downsides in that case would be performance (maybe) and API consistency.