[news.eclipse.technology.equinox] Re: AspectJ-enabled runtime implementa

[Martin Lippert <lippert@xxxxxxx>]

Hi,

> > So, currently I use a cached approach. The crosscuts are applied to the
> > classfiles
> > when the plugin they live in is first loaded. Then the result is 
> > cached. So,
> > you
> > only have to wait once (during "installation"). Future loads of the 
> > platform
> > will
> > be (almost) as fast as before.
> >  ...
> > Concluding, I strongly recommend adopting a caching mechanism.
> I think this is a very good idea. We could cache the modified bytecode 
> of loaded classes somewhere (in the metadata area?).
> In this case we need a mechanism to determine whether the aspects have 
> changed since the last time the system was started. The numer of aspects 
> (or a map to figure out which aspects way installed last time and which 
> not) would not be enough. An installed aspect itself might have changed. 
> If, for example, the pointcut definition is changed the aspect needs to 
> be rewoven into the system the next time the system starts.

Afetr thinking a while I got the idea to use the version id of the plugin that 
contains an aspect to identify whether the aspect might have changed. That would 
be an easy way, I think. Also the caching mechanism could be disabled at 
development time.

-Martin