Issue with Qualified Exports

[Paul Benedict]

Currently I am writing a module that another team will consume. Let's just
call these modules A and B. Module A must export its packages to Module B
and B alone.

For reasons beyond my control, I do not have access to Module B. However, I
don't need to consume any types from B or use B in anyway -- just need to
give package visibility to B. So the compiler is stopping me because it
says "error: module not found". Yes, the compiler is right... but it's too
right. What do you think of loosening the compiler restriction here? I
don't see a reason why the export target must verified at this point.

It should be noted that by not checking the "export", then junk module
names could be specified. Yet, does that really matter? If you export
something to a target module, and the target module isn't around, what's
the tangible loss? I don't see any.

On the other hand, if the compiler restriction isn't loosened, multi-module
project builds in Maven won't be able to cope, either. If A and B are
realized as two separate child projects, Maven will build A before B. This
will always fail in today's situation.

Cheers,
Paul