Proposal: #AutomaticModuleNames (revised)

Robert Scholte rfscholte at apache.org
Sun May 7 18:50:05 UTC 2017


With the support of the Automatic-Module-Name attribute in the MANIFEST  
file all library developers can help their users to provide the intended  
module name.
However, for library developers depending on jars that will never become a  
module it is very frustrating that they can never distribute their jar as  
a modular jar, unless they shade+relocate those classes or switch to other  
libraries. Especially for library developers it is a matter of "all or  
nothing", and the attribute will help with the active projects if they are  
willing to provide this attribute. But if you depend on just 1 automodule  
WITHOUT the attribute, you're forced (adviced) to not add a module  
descriptor. Those are the consequences of these decisions.

I still think that the loose/soft modules is a better fit for the  
community and maybe it is better to not support both automatic modules and  
loose/soft modules. Knowing that the decision to have automatic modules is  
not part of any discussion anymore, the Automatic-Module-Name attribute is  
a minimum requirement to help migrating.

I agree on the recommendation to use reverse DNS for modules names.

thanks,
Robert


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