TY - BOOK
T1 - Using Reflection to Support Type-Safe Evolution in Persistent Systems
AU - Kirby, G. N. C.
AU - Connor, R. C. H.
AU - Morrison, R.
AU - Stemple, D.
N1 - ID: 1324; KCM+96; rejected from Reflection '96, San Francisco
M1 - Report
PY - 1996
Y1 - 1996
N2 - Reflection has been used to address many different problem areas, and the term reflection has itself been used to describe several distinct processes. This paper identifies three simple operations, generation, raising and dynamic rebinding, which may be composed to yield several varieties of reflection. These can be used to allow a self-contained programming system to evolve, through the incorporation of new behaviour into either the application programs or the interpreter which controls their execution. Reflection is a powerful mechanism and potentially dangerous. Used in the context of persistent programming systems, safety is an important consideration: the integrity of large amounts of data may be at stake. This has led to the use of type checking in conjunction with reflection in such systems to provide some guarantees of safety. The paper describes the nature of reflection in persistent systems and identifies some example applications.
AB - Reflection has been used to address many different problem areas, and the term reflection has itself been used to describe several distinct processes. This paper identifies three simple operations, generation, raising and dynamic rebinding, which may be composed to yield several varieties of reflection. These can be used to allow a self-contained programming system to evolve, through the incorporation of new behaviour into either the application programs or the interpreter which controls their execution. Reflection is a powerful mechanism and potentially dangerous. Used in the context of persistent programming systems, safety is an important consideration: the integrity of large amounts of data may be at stake. This has led to the use of type checking in conjunction with reflection in such systems to provide some guarantees of safety. The paper describes the nature of reflection in persistent systems and identifies some example applications.
KW - XschoolX Xpersistent_disabledX Xarchitecture_disabledX reflection
KW - school
UR - http://www.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/files/publications/download/KCM+96.pdf
M3 - Other report
BT - Using Reflection to Support Type-Safe Evolution in Persistent Systems
PB - University of St Andrews
ER -