Book Image

Modular Programming in Java 9

By : Koushik Srinivas Kothagal
Book Image

Modular Programming in Java 9

By: Koushik Srinivas Kothagal

Overview of this book

The Java 9 module system is an important addition to the language that affects the way we design, write, and organize code and libraries in Java. It provides a new way to achieve maintainable code by the encapsulation of Java types, as well as a way to write better libraries that have clear interfaces. Effectively using the module system requires an understanding of how modules work and what the best practices of creating modules are. This book will give you step-by-step instructions to create new modules as well as migrate code from earlier versions of Java to the Java 9 module system. You'll be working on a fully modular sample application and add features to it as you learn about Java modules. You'll learn how to create module definitions, setup inter-module dependencies, and use the built-in modules from the modular JDK. You will also learn about module resolution and how to use jlink to generate custom runtime images. We will end our journey by taking a look at the road ahead. You will learn some powerful best practices that will help you as you start building modular applications. You will also learn how to upgrade an existing Java 8 codebase to Java 9, handle issues with libraries, and how to test Java 9 applications.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

The problem of coupling


The phrase tight coupling in programming is referred to situations where two entities are so highly dependent on each other that in order to change either of their behavior or relationship, it is required to make actual code changes to one (or often both) of those entities. The term loose coupling, on the other hand, refers to the opposite scenario--entities that are not highly dependent. In such cases, entities ideally don't even know about each other's existence, but can still be made to interact with each other.

With that in mind, what would you say the coupling of two modules in the Java module system could be called? When one module depends on another, are the two modules tightly coupled or loosely coupled? The answer is obviously that they are tightly coupled. Think of the following facts that apply to module relationships:

  • Modules need to explicitly state which other modules they depend on. In that sense, each module is aware of the existence of other modules...