Call for Discussion: New Project: Leyden

[Brian Goetz]

On 4/29/2020 10:13 AM, Volker Simonis wrote:
>>> I think "adding static images" to the Java Platform Specification will
>>> be the real tough part of this JEP. What are you envisioning here?
>>> Something like the "compact profiles" [1] on Language/VM level?
>> (I’m not sure what you mean by this.)
> My question was if the "static images" features (and restrictions) will be:
>
>   a) a part of the Java SE specification (e.g. like compact profiles)
>   b) a separate platform specification (e.g. like Java ME).
>
> If the answer is a), will they be an optional or mandatory part of the
> new Java SE specification?
>
> If they will be a part of the Java SE specification, will they be a
> true subset of Java SE or do you expect that they may contain
> extensions which will not be part of Java SE?

I think you're thinking about this in the wrong way.  This is a "call 
for discussion", which should be about discussing the suitability of 
embarking on such a project.  Part of the work of the project would then 
be to explore the possible directions, evaluate the impact, assess 
tradeoffs, propose design candidates, etc.

Questions of the form "will it be" rest on the assumption that there 
already is an answer, and that it just hasn't been revealed.  While in 
some cases, the proposer might have thought about some of those and have 
opinions, in general it is not fair to ask "will it be" questions, 
because most of the time, most of these questions don't have answers.  
It might be OK to ask "do you have any thoughts on", but we should still 
be mindful that many of these questions are more appropriate for the 
actual project than for the CFD.