LEAD: a linguistic approach to dynamic adaptability for practical applications

A system has dynamic adaptability if it adapts itself to a changing runtime environment. As open-ended distributed systems and mobile computing systems have spread widely, the need for software with dynamic adaptability increases. We designed and implemented a language LEAD that provides an architecture for dynamic adaptability. The basic idea is to introduce a mechanism that affects procedure invocation dynamically according to the runtime environment. Using LEAD, we can easily achieve 1) construction of highly extensible dynamically adaptable applications, and 2) addition of dynamic adaptability into existing applications.