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

[Rémi Forax]

On 01/04/2012 04:23 PM, David Bosschaert wrote:
> 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!

The .class format is already an extensible versioned container format
with a dictionnary which is able to store string and class name.
No shoehorn here.

>> 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...

Don't ask me if ASM use user friendly :)
   http://asm.ow2.org/team.html

>
> David

Rémi