How to structure packages

[Nobody]

On Fri, 09 Sep 2011 11:37:44 +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:

>> The Java compiler also acts as a "make" program. If it doesn't find
>> a .class file for a needed class, it will search for the corresponding
>> .java file and compile that. So to compile a complex program, you only
>> need to compile the top-level file (e.g. HelloWorld.java), and it will
>> compile everything which is required. No Makefile is needed, as the
>> relationship between classes, object files and source files is fixed.
>>
> 
> If that's the entire benefit, then I think this is a rather hefty
> price to pay for the elimination of a makefile.

It also eliminates the need for TAGS files, browser database (PDB) files,
etc. Once you know the class name, all of the filenames follow from that.

I suspect that the one-to-one correspondence between classes and .class
files is mostly technical (e.g. Java's security model). The one-to-one
correspondence between class files and source files could probably be
relaxed, but at the expense of complicating the IDE and toolchain.

I never saw it as a problem, given that Java is fundamentally class-based:
there are no global variables or functions, only classes.