Data processing: software development – installation – and managem – Software program development tool – Linking
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-19
2003-03-04
Dam, Tuan Q. (Department: 2122)
Data processing: software development, installation, and managem
Software program development tool
Linking
C717S143000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06530080
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of computer software, and, more specifically, to object-oriented computer applications.
Portions of the disclosure of this patent document contain material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
2. Background Art
With advancements in network technology, the use of networks for facilitating the distribution of media information, such as text, graphics, and audio, has grown dramatically, particularly in the case of the Internet and the World Wide Web. One area of focus for current developmental efforts is in the field of web applications and network interactivity. In addition to passive media content, such as HTML definitions, computer users or “clients” coupled to the network are able to access or download application content, in the form of applets, for example, from “servers” on the network.
To accommodate the variety of hardware systems used by clients, applications or applets are distributed in a platform-independent format such as the Java® class file format. Object-oriented applications are formed from multiple class files that are accessed from servers and downloaded individually as needed. Class files contain bytecode instructions. A “virtual machine” process that executes on a specific hardware platform loads the individual class files and executes the bytecodes contained within.
A problem with the class file format and the class loading process is that class files often contain duplicated data. The storage, transfer and processing of the individual class files is thus inefficient due to the redundancy of the information. Also, an application may contain many class files, all of which are loaded and processed in separate transactions. This slows down the application and degrades memory allocator performance. Further, a client is required to maintain a physical connection to the server for the duration of the application in order to access class files on demand.
These problems can be understood from a review of general object-oriented programming and an example of a current network application environment.
Object-Oriented Programming
Object-oriented programming is a method of creating computer programs by combining certain fundamental building blocks, and creating relationships among and between the building blocks. The building blocks in object-oriented programming systems are called “objects.” An object is a programming unit that groups together a data structure (one or more instance variables) and the operations (methods) that can use or affect that data. Thus, an object consists of data and one or more operations or procedures that can be performed on that data. The joining of data and operations into a unitary building block is called “encapsulation.”
An object can be instructed to perform one of its methods when it receives a “message.” A message is a command or instruction sent to the object to execute a certain method. A message consists of a method selection (e.g., method name) and a plurality of arguments. A message tells the receiving object what operations to perform.
One advantage of object-oriented programming is the way in which methods are invoked. When a message is sent to an object, it is not necessary for the message to instruct the object how to perform a certain method. It is only necessary to request that the object execute the method. This greatly simplifies program development.
Object-oriented programming languages are predominantly based on a “class” scheme. The class-based object-oriented programming scheme is generally described in Lieberman, “Using Prototypical Objects to Implement Shared Behavior in Object-Oriented Systems,” OOPSLA 86 Proceedings, September 1986, pp. 214-223.
A class defines a type of object that typically includes both variables and methods for the class. An object class is used to create a particular instance of an object. An instance of an object class includes the variables and methods defined for the class. Multiple instances of the same class can be created from an object class. Each instance that is created from the object class is said to be of the same type or class.
To illustrate, an employee object class can include “name” and “salary” instance variables and a “set_salary” method. Instances of the employee object class can be created, or instantiated for each employee in an organization. Each object instance is said to be of type “employee.” Each employee object instance includes “name” and “salary” instance variables and the “set_salary” method. The values associated with the “name” and “salary” ID variables in each employee object instance contain the name and salary of an employee in the organization. A message can be sent to an employee's employee object instance to invoke the “set_salary” method to modify the employee's salary (i.e., the value associated with the “salary” variable in the employee's employee object).
A hierarchy of classes can be defined such that an object class definition has one or more subclasses. A subclass inherits its parent's (and grandparent's etc.) definition. Each subclass in the hierarchy may add to or modify the behavior specified by its parent class. Some object-oriented programming languages support multiple inheritance where a subclass may inherit a class definition from more than one parent class. Other programming languages support only single inheritance, where a subclass is limited to inheriting the class definition of only one parent class. The Java programming language also provides a mechanism known as an “interface” which comprises a set of constant and abstract method declarations. An object class can implement the abstract methods defined in an interface. Both single and multiple inheritance are available to an interface. That is, an interface can inherit an interface definition from more than one parent interface.
An object is a generic term that is used in the object-oriented programming environment to refer to a module that contains related code and variables. A software application can be written using an object-oriented programming language whereby the program's functionality is implemented using objects.
A Java program is composed of a number of classes and interfaces. Unlike many programming languages, in which a program is compiled into machine-dependent, executable program code, Java classes are compiled into machine independent bytecode class files. Each class contains code and data in a platform-independent format called the class file format. The computer system acting as the execution vehicle contains a program called a virtual machine, which is responsible for executing the code in Java classes. The virtual machine provides a level of abstraction between the machine independence of the bytecode classes and the machine-dependent instruction set of the underlying computer hardware. A “class loader” within the virtual machine is responsible for loading the bytecode class files as needed, and either an interpreter executes the bytecodes directly, or a “just-in-time” (JIT) compiler transforms the bytecodes into machine code, so that they can be executed by the processor.
FIG. 1
is a block diagram illustrating a sample Java network environment comprising a client platform
102
coupled over a network
101
to a server
100
for the purpose of accessing Java class files for execution of a Java application or applet.
Sample Java Network Application Environment
In
FIG. 1
, server
100
comprises Java development environment
104
for use in creating the Java class files for a given application. The Java development environment
104
provides a mechanism, such as an editor and an applet viewer, for generating class files and previewing applets. A set of Java core classes
103
comprise a library of
Fresko Nedim
Tuck Richard
Dam Tuan Q.
Martine & Penilla LLP
Rodriguez Edmond L
Sun Microsystems Inc.
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