Patent ID: 6490719
Filing Date: 2002-12-03
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A method for configuring and executing a flexible computer program on a general purpose data processing system of known type, comprising the steps of:(a) providing a group of component specifications and (b) creating relationships between members of said group to create a computer program specification, and (c) providing an execution manager which will: 1) examine said computer program specification in a storage area of said data processing system and create a plurality of software components corresponding to the computer program specification, and 2) cause said software components to execute while automatically maintaining said relationships, â€ƒwherein at least one of said component specifications comprises a plurality of attribute descriptors or summary descriptors, d) wherein an attribute descriptor of a first component specification may be specified with i) a second component specification or ii) reference to an attribute descriptor or summary descriptor of a second component specification, thereby forming a structure of component specifications, and e) where an attribute descriptor of said structure may remain unspecified until after said first component specification is used to specify an attribute descriptor of a third component specification, whereby the execution manager causes the computer program to execute according to the component specifications, and whereby a human operator can configure a customized computer program without modifying programming instructions or algorithms or specifications for object/message structures.