After a lot of work on the part of the OSGi expert groups, the OSGi members have approved the Core and Compendium 4.2 specifications as final. You can download them here.
Work continues in the OSGi expert groups on the specifications for the enterprise spec.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Eclipse Galileo update site organization could be more useful
I saw Wayne's call for Mac users to try the Eclipse 3.5 RC1 Cocoa port. So being an Eclipse user and a Mac user, I thought I would give it a try out. I have been using 3.4 for my OSGi development work since it came out last June. I have updated to each point release and am 3.4.2 now. I started with the EPP for RCP developers since that very closely described what I needed to do. All that I needed to add to that was an svn team provider.
So I downloaded the 3.5 RC1 Cocoa driver, unzipped it and started it. But it was rather bare bones. I was missing the extra goodies from the RCP EPP download and, of course, an svn team provider. So I went to the Install New Software dialog and selected the Galileo site. But it took me quite some time to figure out what I needed to select to get back to the function I already had in my 3.4 install. It would have been much more useful to have the update organized like the EPPs. That is by the type of developer I am and the things I need to do. Then I could have found a grouping for RCP developer and installed all the things under that grouping. Since that was not there, I had to consult the 3.4 EPP pages to figure out what RCP EPP build added and then search for those things on the update site (as well as the subversive svn team providers sans svn connector :-( ).
So I think I have all the function I need installed, but it could have been much easier.
So I downloaded the 3.5 RC1 Cocoa driver, unzipped it and started it. But it was rather bare bones. I was missing the extra goodies from the RCP EPP download and, of course, an svn team provider. So I went to the Install New Software dialog and selected the Galileo site. But it took me quite some time to figure out what I needed to select to get back to the function I already had in my 3.4 install. It would have been much more useful to have the update organized like the EPPs. That is by the type of developer I am and the things I need to do. Then I could have found a grouping for RCP developer and installed all the things under that grouping. Since that was not there, I had to consult the 3.4 EPP pages to figure out what RCP EPP build added and then search for those things on the update site (as well as the subversive svn team providers sans svn connector :-( ).
So I think I have all the function I need installed, but it could have been much easier.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Java Posse interview on OSGi
At EclipseCon 2009, Peter Kriens and I were interviewed by the Java Posse about OSGi. The podcast of the interview is now available.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
I am Visible but am I Accessible?
During the JSR 294 Expert Groupt meeting this Monday, we fell in to a long conversation about the distinction between visibility and accessibility in Java. This is an important distinction as we work on modularity for Java.
Visibility is whether one type can see another type. In the JLS, this is discussed as observability. In the JVMS, this is about class loading. Basically, this can be described as whether type T is visible to type S. At compile time, this means that the compiler can locate type T when compiling type S. At runtime, this means that the class loader for type S can load (either directly or through delegation) type T. A type can also be visible through reflection. Even if the class loader of type S cannot load type T, type S may come across type T while reflecting. For example, an object may be of type T even though type S directly refers to it via an interface type I.
Accessibility is whether one type can access another type or a member of another type. This is discussed in the JLS and the JVMS. Most people know accessibility by the public, protected, and private keywords. Also see AccessibleObject.
Visibility and accessibility interact, but they are discrete concepts that must be understood separately as we work on modularity for Java. First a type must be visible in order to use it. Then the type must be accessible or the interesting member of the type must be accessible. It is possible for a type to be visible but not accessible.
OSGi provides it modularity though restricting visibility. This makes sense since OSGi is built on the ClassLoader model. So if bundle A imports packages which are exported by bundle B, bundle A's class loader will not have visibility to any other package in bundle B. But if bundle B registers a service implemented by a type which is not visible to the class loader of bundle A, bundle A can still get the class object of the service (e.g. service.getClass()). If that class has public methods which are not part of the service interface, bundle A is able to call them.
Adding a module accessibility keyword to Java will allow the VM to enforce access control when access is attempted across a module boundary. So in the example above, if bundle A and B are in different modules (as to-be-defined by JSR 294) bundle A cannot access the module accessible member of the service implementation class from bundle B. This would give bundle authors more control and encapsulation.
The difficult part is to define the module boundary so the VM can enforce access and this is still an area of ongoing discussion in the JSR 294 EG. Related to this is also the desire to have Java compilers begin to understand module boundaries with respect to visibility and also the new module accessibility keyword. javac currently has a simplistic view of visibility: -classpath/-sourcepath. This has none of the restricted visibility of a current module system like OSGi. How to enable java compilers to have visibilty which better matches the runtime will be a major challenge.
[2013-10-14 - Updated links to fix link rot from Oracle acquisition of Sun.]
Visibility is whether one type can see another type. In the JLS, this is discussed as observability. In the JVMS, this is about class loading. Basically, this can be described as whether type T is visible to type S. At compile time, this means that the compiler can locate type T when compiling type S. At runtime, this means that the class loader for type S can load (either directly or through delegation) type T. A type can also be visible through reflection. Even if the class loader of type S cannot load type T, type S may come across type T while reflecting. For example, an object may be of type T even though type S directly refers to it via an interface type I.
Accessibility is whether one type can access another type or a member of another type. This is discussed in the JLS and the JVMS. Most people know accessibility by the public, protected, and private keywords. Also see AccessibleObject.
Visibility and accessibility interact, but they are discrete concepts that must be understood separately as we work on modularity for Java. First a type must be visible in order to use it. Then the type must be accessible or the interesting member of the type must be accessible. It is possible for a type to be visible but not accessible.
OSGi provides it modularity though restricting visibility. This makes sense since OSGi is built on the ClassLoader model. So if bundle A imports packages which are exported by bundle B, bundle A's class loader will not have visibility to any other package in bundle B. But if bundle B registers a service implemented by a type which is not visible to the class loader of bundle A, bundle A can still get the class object of the service (e.g. service.getClass()). If that class has public methods which are not part of the service interface, bundle A is able to call them.
Adding a module accessibility keyword to Java will allow the VM to enforce access control when access is attempted across a module boundary. So in the example above, if bundle A and B are in different modules (as to-be-defined by JSR 294) bundle A cannot access the module accessible member of the service implementation class from bundle B. This would give bundle authors more control and encapsulation.
The difficult part is to define the module boundary so the VM can enforce access and this is still an area of ongoing discussion in the JSR 294 EG. Related to this is also the desire to have Java compilers begin to understand module boundaries with respect to visibility and also the new module accessibility keyword. javac currently has a simplistic view of visibility: -classpath/-sourcepath. This has none of the restricted visibility of a current module system like OSGi. How to enable java compilers to have visibilty which better matches the runtime will be a major challenge.
[2013-10-14 - Updated links to fix link rot from Oracle acquisition of Sun.]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
