I'm currently writing an application that requires to operate on different type of devices. My approach would be to make a "modular" application that can dynamically load different classes according to the device they need to operate on.
To make the application easily extensible, my goal is to assign a specific path to the additional modules (either .jar or .class files) leaving the core program as it is. This would be crucial when having different customers requiring different modules (without having to compile a different application for each of them).
These modules would implement a common interface, while the "core" application can use these methods defined on the interface and let the single implementations do the work. What's the best way to load them on demand? I was considering the use of URLClassLoader but i don't know if this approach is up-to-date according to new patterns and Java trends, as I would like to avoid a poorly designed application and deprecated techniques. What's an alternative best approach to make a modular and easily extensible application with JDK 9 (that can be extended just by adding module files to a folder) ?
It sounds like you might want to use the ServicerLoader interface, which has been available since Java 6. However, bear in mind that, if you want to use Spring dependency injection, this is probably not what you want.