Architectures that can dynamically adapt to changing requirement are sometimes called reflective or meta architectures.

We call a particular kind of reflective architecture an "Adaptive Object-Model (AOM)" architecture. An Adaptive Object-Model is a system that represents classes, attributes, relationships, and behavior as metadata. It is a model based on instances rather than classes. Users change the metadata (object model) to reflect changes to the domain model.

These changes modify the systems behavior. In other word, it stores its Object-Model in XML files or in a database and interprets it. Consequently, the object model is adaptive; when the descriptive information for the object model is changed, the system immediately reflects those changes.

We have noticed that the architects of a system with Adaptive Object-Models often claim this is the best system they have ever created, and they brag about its flexibility, power, and eloquence. At the same time, many developers find them confusing and hard to work with. This is due in part because the developers do not understand the architecture.

This talk will give an overview of the Adaptive Object-Model architectural style and will go through some concrete scenarios to better understand implementation issues related to AOMs.