Approaching Integration in Software Environments
Ron Morrison, Quintin I. Cutts · 1997
Persistent programming systems are generally recognised as the appropriate technology for the construction and maintenance of large, long-lived object based application systems. Many successful prototypes have been constructed, and a large body of application building experience is emerging. An essential attribute of persistent systems is the referential integrity of data. That is, once a link (reference) to an object is established, it persists over time. As a consequence no object can be deleted while another refers to it. Here some of the advantages of providing all the support required for the software process within a persistent object store with referential integrity are examined. It is shown how having system specifications, programs, configuration management tools and documentation all within a single persistent environment leads to powerful new techniques. This new power is achieved by sharing persistent data across the hitherto enclosed boundaries of system components. 1. INTRODUCTION ware process can take advantage of the persistent In recent years considerable research has been devoted to the investigation of the concept of persistence and its application in the integration of database systems and programming languages 4, 5. As