Review request: module graph clean up

[mark.reinhold at oracle.com]

2011/11/9 7:52 -0800, roger.riggs at oracle.com:
> Perhaps the desktop module isn't the right place for prefs,
> but it does not belong in the base module. The base module
> is for essential APIs that all developers need regardless of the
> deployment target. For embedded target devices, the preferences
> API has no use and is just dead-code, even if it is small.
> The base module is IMHO already too large and includes APIs
> not needed for all target devices and is over budget.

86KB of class files + 3KB native code (uncompressed on Posix; Windows
sizes are probably similar) hardly seems worth splitting out.

We definitely want to make sure that JDK 8 is useful on small devices,
but we must balance that with the overall complexity of the module graph.
The module graph is, essentially, a kind of API.  Developers are going to
have to learn its structure and be able to reason about it.  The more
complex we make it, the harder that's going to be.

In general I think we should do everything we can to optimize for space
systemically before we consider splitting modules much beyond what we
have now.  Simply compressing class files when installing modules, e.g.,
reduces the class content of the current base module from 10 to 5.3MB.

For now, java.util.prefs should remain in the base module.

- Mark