Authors:
Georgios Voulalas
and
Georgios Evangelidis
Affiliation:
University of Macedonia, Greece
Keyword(s):
Model-driven development, Dynamic applications, Runtime compilation, Java platform, Data versioning, Selective recompilation, Meta-model.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Metadata and Metamodeling
;
Web Information Systems and Technologies
;
Web Interfaces and Applications
Abstract:
In our previous research we have presented the core functional and data components of a framework for the development and deployment of web-based applications. The framework enables the operation of multiple applications within a single installation and supports runtime evolution by dynamically recompiling classes based on the source code that is retrieved from the database. It is structured upon a universal database schema (meta-model). The contributions of this paper include a versioning mechanism that enables access to old data in their real context (i.e., within the version of the application that created this data), a proposal for selective recompilation of new classes that allows applications to evolve safely at the minimum processing cost, and a policy for handling active classes (i.e., classes that have running instances) that need to be dynamically recompiled in order to reflect changes.