JEP 330 (original) (raw)

Volker Simonis volker.simonis at gmail.com
Thu May 31 13:15:35 UTC 2018

Hi Cay,

just nit-picking: JEP 330 proposes to "Launch Single-File Source-Code Programs" for OpenJDK 11 and NOT FOR Java 11. That's an important difference - especially if you teach Java - and I think it would be great if every student would understand that difference.

This JEP doesn't intend to change the Java Language Specification (as it was suggested in the discussions). That's the reason, why "shebang" files will NOT BE VALID Java source files. The whole feature is an implementation detail of the OpenJDK launcher. It's not even required that other launchers implement this as well.

So this feature is obviously more appropriate for teaching "OpenJDK" rather than "Java" :)

Regards, Volker

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Cay Horstmann <cay.horstmann at gmail.com> wrote:

I noticed that JEP 330 is proposed for Java 11. I am all for having support for "shebang" in shell scripts, but as an educator, I object to the characterization that the JEP will contribute to easing the Java learning curve--which is spelled out in the motivation of the JEP. In its current form, it will not. And there are better ways to modify javac that would be helpful.

If the "single file" rule were removed, and students would never have to use javac, sure. But having yet another trivia fact ("You can omit javac with a single source file") is not helpful. I put some thoughts into http://horstmann.com/unblog/2018-05-30/index.html Cheers, Cay

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