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

Revisiting the classpath problems


In Chapter 1, Introducing Java 9 Modularity, we looked at two problems faced by our friends Jack and Amit:

  • Jack couldn't easily encapsulate internal library types and prevent use of that type outside the library, while retaining the ability to freely use them inside his own library
  • Amit couldn't reliably assemble a set of compiled Java code and guarantee that all the dependencies and imports of those types are sufficiently met before the program actually hits the dependency at runtime

Have we solved these problems with the module system? Thankfully, yes!

We've already seen how the Java module's encapsulation prevents certain types from being accessed outside the module, even if the type is public, unless the package they belong to is explicitly exported. Indeed, we applied the same concept to hide the BubbleSortUtilImpl class from external use. When it comes time to upgrade our library, should we feel the need to modify (or even remove) that class, we can rest...