Hi Ethan, Thanks for your feedback! I’ve created JBS issue https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8370687 to track improving this error message.
Lois Confidential – Oracle Internal From: valhalla-dev <[email protected]> on behalf of Ethan McCue <[email protected]> Date: Saturday, October 25, 2025 at 11:13 PM To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: Calling instance method from value class constructor is a little confusing Just a note from playing with the EA build. Minimal example: import java.util.ArrayList; value class HittableList2 { private final ArrayList<Object> objects = new ArrayList<>(); HittableList2() {} HittableList2(Object object) { add(object); } void add(Object object) { objects.add(object); } } This gives the error /Users/emccue/Development/raytracer/src/HittableList2.java:10: error: cannot reference add(Object) before constructor has been called add(object); ^ I know this means the superclass's constructor (and that I need to put an explicit super() at the top of the method), but reading that straight "cannot reference ... before constructor has been called - I'm in the constructor!"
