APPLICATION VERSIONING, SELECTIVE CLASS RECOMPILATION AND MANAGEMENT OF ACTIVE INSTANCES IN A FRAMEWORK FOR DYNAMIC 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.