Hope for interoperation between JSR 277 and JSR 291

Infoq and Alex Miller picked up on my recent comments about the somewhat closed approach being adopted by JSR 277. Since the whole concept of interoperation between JSR 277 and JSR 291 seems to be doubted, I thought I'd better provide some reassurance.

The saving grace of both these JSRs is that they ultimately boil down to delegation networks between module class loaders. So there is a lingua franca lurking not very far under the surface. Granted the views presented to the module developer are quite different in detail.

Quite a while ago, I wrote a prototype module system interoperation framework, described in more detail here, to start to flesh out how these JSRs could interoperate. I regard it more of an existence proof that a reasonable solution may exist. However, it requires 'cutting' into the module systems at a deeper level than I think is currently being considered by the JSR 277 spec. lead and colleagues.

We discussed some of the options in an informal Expert Group meeting at JavaOne, but all we really concluded was that there was a lot of work ahead to get interoperation working smoothly. I think there is also a consensus among the interested parties that reasonable interoperation is essential to the success of JSR 277. So the sooner we can get more eyes, and brains, on the current proposal, the better.