In a blog post titled “Project Jigsaw: Modular Runtime Images,” Mark Reinhold, chief architect for Oracle’s Java Platform Group warned that proposed changes in Java could have “significant impact” on both developers and users. “We’re aware that these changes will break some applications, in particular IDEs and other development tools which rely upon the internal structure of the JDK,” he wrote. “We think that the improvements to performance, security, and maintainability enabled by these changes are, however, more than worth it. We’ve already reached out to the maintainers of the major IDEs to make sure that they know about these changes, and we’re ready to assist as necessary.”
Project Jigsaw includes a number of changes that will make Java more modular. It is slated for inclusion in Java 9.
