RE: [picocontainer-dev] Redeployment of components

Hi Rickard,

Rickard Öberg wrote on Monday, February 20, 2006 11:12 AM:

> Hi!
> 
> I have a situation that I'd like to check with you guys on
> how to best
> handle.
> 
> We have reached a point where we during development need to
> be able to
> start the system, load all the components, and then be able
> to redeploy
> one or more as they are coded. Restarting the entire system
> just because
> one component has changed is not an option, since the total
> startup time
> is about a minute right now, which is devastating for the development
> cycle. My approach right now is to use the Nano Deployer to implement
> a plugin system, which I have updated to support undeployment and
> redeployment.  That works well.
> 
> However, the main trick is classloading. Each component
> consists of two
> parts: the API/interface and the implementation. Since the API of a
> component cannot be redeployed, as all other components would
> then have
> to be redeployed as well if they use classes from the API, it
> seems like
> the best way to do it is to split each component into two separate
> deployments: one with the API and one with the implementation. During
> development one would then only redeploy the implementation.
> If the API
> changes the entire system has to be restarted, but that's ok.
> 
> Has anyone else done something similar? Since the Nano
> Deployer cannot
> currently handle un/redeployment I suppose everyone else had
> to make the
> same hacks I did (which I'll submit as a patch once they are tested).
> Are there any other plans to make something like this part of
> Pico/Nano? 

MicroContainer is supposed to support that scenario (once). Said that, I cannot find any un/redeployment functionality in its codebase either ;-)

So any improvement for a un/redeployment scenario is highly welcome (deployer or microcontainer).

- Jörg