Goal: Increased Modularity?

[Les Mikesell]

Richi Plana wrote:

>> I'm not sure I understand.  Shouldn't you be able to use any version of 
>> a jvm, packaged or not, without specific dependencies, just like you 
>> could use different media players to play the same file? Or even run 
>> more than one of them at once?
> 
> Sorry, that was a bit vague. I just meant that a piece of java bytecode
> is usually designed to be executed in one way (either as a java
> application, web application, applet, etc.) or 2 or 3 at the most. Media
> files can be used in so many ways, not just playing them (editing,
> converting, analysis, etc.) Anyway, the point is that it's just not the
> best example to illustrate your point, and not that it doesn't.

OK, the likely scenarios are that you have different apps that only work 
with one JVM each, and even with one app you always want to be able to 
test it under different JVM verions (including the next update) before 
thinking about changing the system default.

>> Yes, thanks, and sorry - I missed the one actual answer in the first 
>> link, but I was confused by the comment somewhere about parts going to 
>> private and export directories that didn't seem to be under the same top 
>> level. Is everything expected to be under JAVA_HOME actually still in 
>> one place?
> 
> I honestly don't know. 1) So far, it's worked for me, 2) looking at the
> contents of the JRE (java-1.5.0-(sun|ibm)), it seems that apart from a
> couple of JAR files located in jvm-exports/ and jvm-private/, all the
> files are in (quotes) "$JAVA_HOME". Anybody read the pertinent JSR on
> JAVA_HOME directory layouts care to comment?

The answer I have really been looking for is that the concept of 
JAVA_HOME reliably still exists, and how to use it in spite of the 
efforts to hide where it lives in the alternatives universe.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com