Rule-Based Composition Behaviors in Dynamic Plug-In Systems

Plug-in frameworks facilitate the development of customizable and extensible software, yet they often lack support for flexible and dynamic (re)configuration. We have created Plux.NET, a novel plug-in framework for plug-and-play composition. In Plux, a composer replaces programmatic composition with automatic composition. Components just specify their requirements and provisions using metadata, and the composer assembles the components guided by that metadata. This paper introduces rule-based composition behaviors, which are a means for controlling the composition process declaratively. Behavior rules constrain the composer by preventing certain operations or by triggering new ones. They help to establish a rule conformant composition state. Thereby, Plux supports developers in declarative and rule-based composition in order to minimize programming effort.