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

[David Bosschaert]

On 4 January 2012 14:46, Rémi Forax <forax at univ-mlv.fr> wrote:
> The module descriptor is not the .java but the .class,
> the .java is a convenient way to specify the module descriptor.

I have nothing against a convenient way of specifying a module
description, I actually see that as a requirement :) but that
requirement doesn't imply that it needs to be shoe-horned into .java
and .class files!

> This allow to have a readable syntax for the user and
> a module descriptor that contains synthetized informations
> by example the module descriptor can contain a set of exported types,
> having a .java let users to use a * (wildcard) to specify the exported
> types.

I don't follow why you would only get this feature if you describe the
module metadata in a .java file. You could just as easily define a
textual file format that allows the specification of wildcards...

> I expect all tools will use the jigsaw reflective API
> or ASM.
Well, ahem, requiring people to use ASM isn't really user-friendly IMHO...

David