Java Remote Object Binding with Method Streaming

The basic programming elements in object-oriented programming (OOP) are objects that interact with each other by virtually sending messages to and receiving messages from other objects. This principle is realized differently in various OOP languages, but the most commonly used approach is the definition of methods and classes which are subsequently used to instantiate objects. Typically, object references are used to bind and call methods on an object. In this paper, we present a new approach to remote object binding and method calling by introducing so called method streaming. Caller and callee objects are not directly bound using object references but by binding to a method stream. In contrast to existing approaches, method streams enable the transparent and customizable interconnection of legacy remote Java object implementations on top of conventional network middleware. Thus, method streams do not replace but supplement existing solutions like RMI and CORBA by providing an easy-to-use framework for Java-based distributed applications.