concept base module in category java

This is an excerpt from Manning's book The Java Module System. Login to get full access to this book.

Loading the base module

The module system is just code, and you’ve learned that everything is a module, so which one contains the JPMS? That would be java.base, the base module. In a considerable hen-and-egg mind-boggler, the module system and the base module bootstrap each other.

The base module is also the first node in the module graph that the JPMS builds. That’s exactly what it does next.

Figure 3.3 Most types of modules, organized in a handy diagram. The modules shipped with the JDK are called platform modules, with the base module at their center. Then there are application modules, one of which must be the initial module, which contains the application’s main method. (Root, system, and incubator modules aren’t shown.)