Missing annotation literal in @Asynchronous annotation

[arjantijms]

It's general a good practice to add annotation literals to annotations that are used in CDI environments. We forgot these for the Faces 2.3 spec, and got quite a bit of feedback about those.

We added them in 4.0 as per e.g. this example:

https://github.com/eclipse-ee4j/mojarra/blob/master/impl/src/main/java/jakarta/faces/annotation/ApplicationMap.java#L52

Would be good for Concurrency to do the same.

[smillidge]

What's the thinking behind it? Would be good to know to understand whether to push to get in this release?

[arjantijms]

Annotation literals are essential when adding annotations programmatically to beans in CDI. This is the exact reason why all CDI's own annotations (where applicable) have literals.

Omission of literals in annotations is still one of the reasons why the programmatic API in CDI feels sub-par, hence why, in principle, all annotations intended to be used in a CDI environment should have them.

[njr-11]

Adding the annotation programmatically seems like a more obscure scenario for @Asynchronous given that the asynchronous method implementation really ought to have awareness of itself being used as an asynchronous method. (It must follow specific patterns in terms of either returning a completion stage that is different from the one the caller receives or otherwise obtaining the resulting completion stage from the Asynchronous API itself which will only ever work if running as an asynchronous method). I'd be fine to add the literal for these cases, but it doesn't seem like a necessity for 3.0, and is something that could be added on in 3.1.

[arjantijms]

Adding the annotation programmatically seems like a more obscure scenario for @asynchronous given that the asynchronous method implementation really ought to have awareness of itself being used as an asynchronous method.

I hear you, though it's perhaps less obscure for when you translate between the give or take 7 existing @Asynchronous annotations.

[arjantijms]

p.s. annotation literals are not just for adding them programmatically, you also use them for look-ups.

[HousniAbdellatife]

@KyleAure can I work on this issue?

[KyleAure]

@HousniAbdellatife Thanks for taking interest in this project.
From the conversation so far on this issue there doesn't seem to be any dissenting opinion that this SHOULD NOT be added to the concurrency specification. Therefore, I think this is likely to be included if you add it!

Before you begin, make sure to read the contribution instructions here:
https://github.com/jakartaee/concurrency/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.adoc

You will need to make an Eclipse account and sign the Eclipse Contributor Agreement (ECA) for your pull request to be considered for review and contribution.

FYI - the Jakarta EE platform is between versions at the moment so many of the contributors to this project may be focused elsewhere if we miss a comment or PR feel free to @ me 😆