Oracle has recently undertaken an extended series of work sessions designed to focus on Jigsaw, the Java module system. The Jigsaw system's goal is to build a standard module system for the Java SE Platform. It also seeks to implement and apply that system to the platform itself and to the JDK.
Although Oracle has stated that this project has been (and still is) in an exploratory phase (which has lasted four years so far), the firm says that its in-progress requirements document has always been intended to be among the starting points of an eventual Java Platform Module System JSR.
Oracle's Mark Reinhold (who is chief architect) says the team is exploring a simplified approach to achieving the goals of the Jigsaw project.
"Among other things, we're going to see whether we can get away without introducing a distinct 'module mode' as we have in the current prototype (which is incompatible, in some narrow yet deep ways, with long-standing behavior) and without doing dependence resolution (since build tools like Maven, Ivy, and Gradle already do that well enough)," said Reinhold.
Project Jigsaw was hoped to be a major feature of Java 7; it is currently in deferred status intended to hit Java 9.
Reinhold explains that his team is open to taking code from the old project where it "makes sense", but it will also take the opportunity to question earlier design decisions during the clean up.
Reinhold finishes, "I urge onlookers to remember that this is just another prototype. It is likely to evolve swiftly. Its shape and content at any given point in time should not be treated as having any particular bearing on the final result of this project."
