What is a language construct?

[David M. Lloyd]

On 12/23/2011 12:52 PM, Jesse Glick wrote:
> On 12/23/2011 11:59 AM, Alex Buckley wrote:
>> to align the language with the module system, the scope
>> of observability will grow to encompass module dependences
>> and the scope of accessibility will grow to encompass module exports.
>
> I fail to see how the tradition of the JLS forces such a system to
> represent modules directly in Java source files. Following the style of
> chapter 7, the JLS could simply say something to the effect of:
>
> - A host system may group compilation units [or types?] into sets called
> "modules". The host system must then determine which other modules are
> observable from a given module, and may specify that some types [or
> packages? or individual elements?] within those modules are to be
> considered inaccessible despite the other provisions in the section
> "Access Control".

It would be even better if this could be refined to draw a 1:0..1 
equivalence between a class loader and a module, and define the access 
control in terms of the class loader.  This also expands the visibility 
rule to non-modular code which could be quite useful, and closely 
matches existing package accessibility rules as well.

The only reason given to allow multiple modules to share a class loader 
is for the purposes of code which expects JDK classes to have a "null" 
class loader.  But I don't see this as a serious hurdle - there are many 
reasons that code may need updating after Java 8 and singling out this 
one as the one unacceptable change seems a bit unrealistic.

-- 
- DML