Propagation of Behavioral Variations with Delegation Proxies

Abstract

Abstract. Scoping behavioral variations to dynamic extents is useful to support non-functional concerns that otherwise result in cross-cutting code. Unfortunately, such forms of scoping are difficult to obtain with traditional reflection or aspects. We propose delegation proxies, a dynamic proxy model that supports behavioral intercession through the interception of various interpretation operations. Delegation proxies permit different behavioral variations to be easily composed together. We show how delegation proxies enable behavioral variations that can propagate to dynamic extents. We demonstrate our approach with examples of behavioral variations scoped to dynamic extents that help simplify code related to safety, reliability, and monitoring.

Reflection as a Tool to Debug Objects

“…We now need to intercept all messages received by our instrumented objects. We use a forwarding proxy [17] object (Figure 5) that wraps our target object aBottom. Upon wrapping, we use the become primitive [8] that swaps all references of aBottom with references to that proxy.…”