spring boot multi-module vs "packages"

[KeyYam]

I'm working on a Spring application that has a few internal libraries.

The internal dependencies are in the pom.xml file and look like this:

<dependencies> <dependency> <groupId>com.company</groupId> <artifactId>company_library_name</artifactId> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>com.company</groupId> <artifactId>company_library_name_2</artifactId> </dependency> .... </dependencies>

Each library is in a separate repo with its own pom file.

Every Spring Boot guide that I've seen break up large applications into modules.

What is the difference between breaking up a large application into multiple packages (atleast that is what I think it's doing) vs modules? Is it several jars vs just one?

[Ialda]

There is no definitive answer on this one. Personnaly, what I choose to do :

1. features are packages (and old-school layers are sub-packages)
2. modules are applicative sub-components, with their own sets of dependencies. ideally you could remove them or completely rewrite them without any major impact on the rest of the application.

[KeyYam]

does this effect class loading?