Late for the train

[mark.reinhold at oracle.com]

2012/7/19 12:57 -0700, daniel.latremoliere at gmail.com:
> ...
> 
> Would it be possible to see a reborn, in JavaSE 8, of JSR 294 superpackages for
> modularity in user applications running on Java SE 8 (not in code internal to
> JDK8). Having this would be useful for all developers and need mostly a new
> java.lang.reflect.Modifier for module access rights.

Superpackages aren't quite that simple, I'm afraid.  (I'm sure Alex could
say more ...).

Leaving that particular design direction aside, I don't think it's a good
idea to deliver a module system for user applications without, in the
same major release, also using that system to modularize the JDK itself.

The danger is that if we deliver a module system in release N but don't
use it to modularize the platform until release N+1 then we run a big
risk of getting something fundamentally wrong in the module system.
If that happens then we'd have to fix it in release N+1, and fixing
fundamental design flaws after the fact almost always leads to a poor
end result.

Aside from that, there are less than ten months to go in the Java 8
schedule for work on major features.  There just isn't enough time to
consider such an alternative in a way that would take into account the
varied needs of the entire Java community.  Sorry.

- Mark