Refactoring the Library API

[Mark Reinhold]

> Date: Fri, 08 May 2009 08:42:31 -0600
> From: Brian Pontarelli <brian at pontarelli.com>

> I'm pretty new to the list and the details of Jigsaw, but based on my
> knowledge of things and how I do this in Savant, I would generate the
> module-info file at release time (what you are calling installation
> time). The only artifact released would be the module JAR file, which
> could include all the necessary information to generate the module-
> info.class file, and the installation tool would generate it and
> release it as a sibling to the JAR (I would highly advise against
> pulling dependency information from inside the JAR files). That would
> allow full graph construction without incurring downloading overhead
> and not force developers to manage two separate pieces. I don't have
> full information about how Jigsaw defines and manages this
> information, but Savant uses the primary build file (project.xml) to
> generate an AMD file (artifact-meta-data) at release time. This is
> also part of releasing integration builds.

One of the primary goals of Jigsaw is to unify, as much as possible, the
treatment of modules at compile time vs. run time.  The Java language
allows you to constrain the accessibility and visibility of interfaces,
classes, and members, and the compile-time and run-time views of these
constraints are pretty similar -- though not identical.  Modules should
be no different.

So for Jigsaw defining modules is not a release-time activity; it's
something done up front, along with all the other code.  This way
developers have a simple, uniform model of accessibility and visibility
rather than one that's split across the compile, release, and run phases
of the development cycle.

- Mark