Core JPF Concepts

Our Purpose

The goal of the JPF project is to help Java developers build modular and extensible applications. At JPF, we think it is important to clearly distinguish between the two.

Modules and Application Modularity

Simply speaking, modularization is splitting an application into several smaller parts. The JPF framework allows this by using the concept of plug-ins. This means you can think of plug-ins as a collection of classes and resources managed by special ClassLoader that makes them available to all dependent plug-ins transparently.

Lets say a plug-in PluginA introduces a class ClassA (this class is included in a plug-in directory hierarchy described by a JPF plug-in manifest). Now you are developing another plug-in, PluginB, and add another class, ClassB, to this plug-in. You want to reference ClassA in your ClassB code so you need to declare a plug-in dependency. You can do this by making an entry in the JPF manifest of the plug-in PluginB that says "PluginB depends on PluginA". This is done in the prerequisites/imports section of the JPF manifest. JPF handles finding and loading ClassA when it is first called. The magic lies in the ClassLoaders created by JPF. The extend the classpath of PluginB so that it includes the classpath of PluginA. So the developer doesn't have to worry about finding classes and can use the basic code that follows in ClassB:

	ClassA clsA = new ClassA();
	

No further work is necessary to make ClassA visible for ClassB code, only simple JPF manifest declarations.

Extensions and Application Extensibility

Simply speaking, application extensibility is adding on to already existing functionality. JPF supports this with special manifest declarations. In JPF extensibility is based on the concept of extension points and extensions. An extenstion point is an opening that may be added to by later code. An extension is code that adds onto an existing extension point. Typically extension points are declared in a plug-in manifest and supported with Java code There is no special dedicated API for such code in JPF as it can be anything! For examples of extension points see the JPF demo application.

When designing applications based on JPF it is better to think in terms of extension points and extensions rather than plug-ins. In general, it doesn't matter where (in what plug-in) the actual code and/or resources are placed. It is much more important to define where an application can be extended, and design and develop extension points to support this extensibility.

Summary

Plug-ins - are what makes an application modular. Extension points / extensions - are what makes application extensible.