A meta-programming approach to general data modeling.
Introduction
Meta-JB is a MetaClass/MetaObject layer providing generic access to model implementations, decoupling application logic from underlying implementation details, and allowing user interfaces (Swing, HTML, etc.) to be dynamically generated at runtime. By wrapping model implementations in MetaObject adapters, applications can interact with the model layer in a homogenous way.
Description
Meta-JB extends the Java Beans-based meta-programming concept to provide more generic access to object attributes and descriptions for any model object with an appropriate adapter. The descriptions of a class's properties (the MetaClass) and access to an object's attributes are decoupled from actual implementations by adapters implementing a Map-like name/value interface (the MetaObject). Because the thin framework is built on generic interfaces, it is not tied directly to real Java bean implementations and can also be used for anything that can access values by name. (Some examples are SQL result sets, HTTP request data, or simple hash maps.) Once a "class" has been described, the information can even be applied to different underlying implementations.
The MetaClass/MetaObject layer is a foundation for dynamically generating user-level access to application object models. Toolkits are provided for generating Swing GUIs at runtime or dynamically rendering objects as XML using the class descriptions. On the drawing board is support for generating HTML forms and views as well. Future development may also extend to a collaborative data access layer.