Run-time phenomena in dynamic software updating
Allan Raundahl Gregersen, Bo Nørregaard Jôrgensen · 2011
The development of a dynamic software updating system for statically-typed object-oriented programming languages has turned out to be a challenging task. Despite the fact that the present state of the art in dynamic updating systems, like JRebel, Dynamic Code Evolution VM, JVolve and Javeleon, all provide very transparent and flexible technical solutions to dynamic updating, case studies have shown that designing dynamically updatable applications still remains a challenging task. This challenge has its roots in a number of run-time phenomena that are inherent to dynamic updating of applications written in statically-typed object-oriented programming languages. In this paper, we present our experience from developing dynamically updatable applications using a state-of-the-art dynamic updating system for Java. We believe that the findings presented in this paper provide an important step towards a better understanding of the implications of dynamic updating on the application design.