Pluggable reflection: decoupling meta-interface and implementation

  • Authors:
  • David H. Lorenz;John Vlissides

  • Affiliations:
  • Northeastern University, Boston, MA;IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Software Engineering
  • Year:
  • 2003

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Reflection remains a second-class citizen in current programming models, where it's assumed to be imperative and tightly bound to its implementation. In contrast, most object-oriented APIs allow interfaces to vary independently of their implementations. Components take this separation a step further by describing unforeseeable attributes---the key to pluggable third-party components. This paper describes how reflection can benefit from a similar evolutionary path.