Getting started with JavaFX is made overly complicated by the fact that
the use of the
module system is enforced by some code in the JDK. Especially for
beginners, who just
want to get some small program running, this is almost always a big
source of frustration.
It is not very good marketing for JavaFX to make these initial steps
such a pain. If you
need some evidence for this statement, then just follow JavaFX on
Stackoverflow or similar
sites (and also this mailing list). Almost every day you can read
frustrated posts from
helpless people who would just like to get some JavaFX project running
but are failing
because they get lost in the module system jungle.
In order to make JavaFX more easily accessible, especially for
beginners, I'd like to start
a discussion here about the possibility to unconditionally remove the
JavaFX JPMS
enforcement. IMHO this enforcement is simply not necessary and is just
the root for a lot
of frustration with JavaFX. It should just be possible to put all the
JavaFX jars on the
classpath (instead of the module path) like you would do with any other
external dependency
in a non-modular setup.
With a not very intuitive hack you can circumvent this problem already now.
Just add a line like this to the file which contains your main class
extending
Application (MyApp).
class MyAppLauncher {public static void main(String[] args)
{MyApp.main(args);}}
Because of this launcher it is now possible to put all dependencies and
all JavaFX jars
on the classpath and to completely forget the module system with all its
intricacies and pitfalls.
But why should people be forced to use such dirty tricks? The better
alternative would be to just
lift the current constraint.
I am using this trick for a long time now, even on bigger projects, and
I have never ever
experienced any problem resulting from this. Even in theory I don't know
anything that
could prevent a formally correct module jar to also work on the
classpath (which is of
course not true the other way round). Therefore I say that this
constraint is just not
necessary and only does a lot of damage to JavaFXs reputation.
I'd now like to have some feedback of the community about this.
Michael
