Reflections on remote reflection

摘要

The Java programming language provides both reflection and remote method invocation: reflection allows a program to inspect itself and its runtime environment, remote method invocation allows methods to be invoked transparently across a network. Unfortunately, the standard Java implementations of reflection and remote method invocation are incompatible: programmers cannot reflect on a remote application.We describe how Java systems can be extended to support Remote Reflection transparently by extending the standard Java API. Remote reflection can support remote debuggers, performance monitors, programming environments, application component servers such as Enterprise JavaBeans, and any other Java system that can be distributed across a network.