What is a language construct? (was Re: Comment on state of Project Jigsaw)

[mark.reinhold at oracle.com]

2011/12/21 14:15 -0800, neal at gafter.com:
> A language construct is a syntactic construct that appears within source files
> of the programming language.
> 
> In this case (if I understand it) the language "addition" is distinct from and
> never intermixed with syntax of the underlying programming language.  It is
> therefore a distinct language.

In purely syntactic terms module declarations are no less intermixed than
package, import, or type declarations [1], and I don't think anyone would
argue that those are not part of the language.

- Mark


[1] http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jigsaw/doc/lang-vm.html#jigsaw-1.3.2