A service‐based runtime environment for native applications

Abstract

Unlike interpreted application programs that run within the rich runtime environment of their own interpreters, natively compiled application programs are typically thought of as executing on the barebones runtime environment provided by their own operating systems and dynamic linkers. This article presents the notion of a service‐based runtime (SBRT) environment for natively compiled application programs, in which the current dynamic linker is only a core service and other extensive middleware‐type services are available to the running application program. It then describes a dynamic‐linker‐based implementation of such an environment, called dlSBRT. dlSBRT implements a unified interface that allows it to be extensible by means of extension dynamic services. Implemented examples of such services are presented and the performance of dlSBRT, when such example services are deployed, is evaluated. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Flexible Composition for C Plus Plus 11

“…This technology could potentially be reused as the base of C++ application servers. Another work in this direction is dlSBRT by Al-Gahmi and Cook [1]. They describe a mechanism to provide low-level services to applications such as meta-data, call-graph instrumentation, or more conventional services, such an LDAP directory services.…”

“…As Al-Gahmi and Cook [1], we think that the difference in flexibility and ease of development in native languages is exacerbated by the lack of new developments in tools and runtime infrastructure during the 2000s. The reason is that managed languages such as Java, C# and Python, that focus on flexibility and programmer productivity have been favored over traditional native languages such as C and C++…”