[zeedude]

There are good reasons. When you begin writing IDE support you will discover that:

1. Without annotations you’ll be forced to index all static methods based on the first argument, globally.

2. Method call code completion will be ridiculous. How many static methods have String, File, List, Object(!) etc. as the first parameter? I don’t think anybody wants their code completion to be invaded like that.

The annotations provide intention. Essentially, adding an extension method is not something to be taken lightly, it requires careful consideration, weighing context, frequency, etc.

[rogerkeays]

IDEs are not my strong point. Aren't they smart enough to just search static methods in the scope of the compilation unit? Okay, so they have to be indexed first I suppose, but still... Ah, I suppose you want to search for methods you haven't imported yet. Now I get the annotation stuff. We're writing code for the IDE.

[zeedude]

Ding!