#ModulesV2 (spiffy name later)

Back story

P--man and S--rise are historic systems that are internal modularity systems.

We would like to create a modularity system (with default implementation in msbuild) that provides the union and more functionality of these internal systems.

Engine/Format Goals

• Decoupling:
  • no need to traverse to generate exports implementation (project is specified explicitly, like S--rise). Decouples from specific build system's traversal method.
  • not coupled to a source repository or build system. engine implementation should be pluginable (msbuild) but format is decoupled from msbuild.
  • format/engine not coupled to binary form versioning, like P**man. Only the checkout process is.
• Open Source
  • this project will be open source, and can do so because of the decoupling from specific systems (msbuild is available)
• Substitutability: can substitute binary (NuGet) and source form packages.
  • good for open sourcing without the need to transform the project files
  • all references (binary or source) look the same
• New Support:
  • miscfolder deployment
  • fine grained modularity dependency visibility controls
  • migrating features from p--man adds:
    • native code support
    • custom abstractions (mostly for shipping toolsets as modules)
    • symbolic exports
    • artifact deployment (gathering the dependency closure of artifacts)
  • dependency mapping between export symbols now look better
• Retain Valuable S--rise Features:
  • break build on underdeclared (and add overdeclared)
  • break build on going around abstractions
  • break build on taking illegal dependency (though S--rise implementation needs adjusting)
• S--rise BackCompat: maintain backwards compatibility with S--rise modules (convention is that there is a default export if none is supplied, see moduleFormat-SimpleByConvention.xml for example)
• P--man BackCompat/Migratability: map P--man's dependency types and granularity on to this format, so the migration granularity is practically 1:1
  • only major change is source form project location is explicit, not derived from a traversal.
  • technically could generate P--man modules as well from ModulesV2 format.

Feature Breakdown

Feature	P--man	S--rise	ModulesV2 (projected)
Custom Abstractions/Toolsets	Yes	No	Yes
Native	Yes	No	Yes
Underdeclared Break Build	No (might break publish)	Yes	Yes
Around Abstractions Break Build	No (might break late on form switching)	Yes	Yes
Illegal Dependency Break Build	No (only breaks upgrade)	Needs Work	Yes
Artifact Deployment	Yes	No	Yes
Symbolic exports	Yes	No	Yes
Substitutability	Yes	No	Yes