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Java 9 Delayed Due To Modularity Controversy (infoworld.com)
An anonymous reader quotes InfoWorld:
Java 9 won't be released on July 27 after all. Oracle has proposed that Java 9 Standard Edition be delayed until September 21 so the open source community that is finalizing Java 9 can address the ongoing controversy over a planned but later rejected approach to modularity, said Georges Saab, vice president of software development in the Java platform group at Oracle and chairman of the OpenJDK governing board...
The [Java Platform Module System] measure was sent back to the proposal's expert group for further discussion. Since then, the group has reached consensus on addressing the modularity concerns, Saab said. But they cannot rework Java 9 in time for the original July 27 release date... If the revised JSR 376 approved, as expected, work can proceed on implementing it in the official version of Java 9 SE. This setback for Java 9s upcoming upgrade, however, should just be temporary, with Oracle expecting a more rapid cadence of Java SE releases going forward, Saab said.
The [Java Platform Module System] measure was sent back to the proposal's expert group for further discussion. Since then, the group has reached consensus on addressing the modularity concerns, Saab said. But they cannot rework Java 9 in time for the original July 27 release date... If the revised JSR 376 approved, as expected, work can proceed on implementing it in the official version of Java 9 SE. This setback for Java 9s upcoming upgrade, however, should just be temporary, with Oracle expecting a more rapid cadence of Java SE releases going forward, Saab said.
They envisioned a way where one could package the parts of the standard library with a application without including the whole thing. Of course, to do this they decided to totally change how the classpath and classloader works (how the VM finds and loads libraries) and then break reflection (being able to inspect library code from the code using that library).
This is what happens when architectural astronauts get involved. The module system was NOT designed to solve clients' problems, it was designed to make JVM "modular" to better support IoT and "containers".
And because it's not a user-driven feature, Snoracle went wild. They designed a complicated system that basically will force a significant redesign of every large Java-based system, all the while ignoring experience of OSGi, Maven and other modular systems. Here's a nice breakdown: https://developer.jboss.org/bl...
I can add a couple of my own comments, Snoracle is _still_ enamored with code access security. They think that they need to mutilate the language to support running of privileged and unprivileged code within the same address space, separated only by module boundaries. To this end, they designed complicated rules of visibility with restrictions for reflective access. You can guess how useful this is going to be - just remember the great security of applets.