An approach and tools to automate externalization of application logic

Abstract

Externalization of application logic from application objects has become pervasive in its use in many system, business and application components. Implementation of such systems typically focuses on the use of rules and rule engines, and has typically been closely integrated with the application objects themselves and application source code needs to be modified to include decision points to externalize the logic. This puts a burden on the developers if the application contains a large number of decision points. The problem is compounded by legacy applications where source code is not available and therefore it is virtually impossible to modify the application source code to include the decision points. This has limited the potential use of application logic externalization methodology. In this report, we will describe an approach and tools to automate the process of externalizing application logic for applications without modifying source code.