The document linked below describes the current design center of the API
for symbolic references. This work is driven by the need for
intrinsification via JEP 303, but its applicability runs much deeper.
This is a checkpoint along the way; we're not done, but we think that
the current approach works well.
The current API differs from the previous iteration mostly in focus;
we've backed away from trying to describe the constant pool directly,
and instead focus primarily on symbolic references, leaving the
translation from symbolic reference to compilers and bytecode APIs.
You can get a peek at the current state of the API by watching the
condy-folding branch of the amber repository.
http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~briangoetz/amber/constables.html
