Patent ID: 8225310

Claim:
A method of deploying computer code, comprising: receiving at a repository a new or updated software object class; and updating a global change record at the repository to reflect that the new or updated software object class is available from the repository, wherein the global change record is associated with a plurality of software object classes stored at the repository and the global change record is updated each time a new software object class is added to the plurality of software object classes or one or more software object classes included in the plurality of software object classes are updated, wherein in response to an application server, associated with the repository, receiving a request at the application server to instantiate an object associated with a first software object class associated with the repository, the application server is configured to check for updates associated with the plurality of software object classes stored at the repository including by reading the global change record, and in the event that the application server determines that the global change record indicates that no new or updated software object class have been added or updated at the repository since a previous check for updates, the application server is configured to use a copy of the first software object class stored in a local cache to instantiate the object, wherein if the first software object class is not available in the local cache, a shared class loader in the local cache is checked, the shared class loader requests the first software object class if available from the repository, if the first software object class is not available for download from the repository, the shared class loader looks to its parent class loader to obtain the first software object class; and in the event that the application server determines that the global change record indicates that a new or updated software object class has been added or updated at the repository since the previous check for updates, the application server is configured to iterate through all of software object classes downloaded previously to the application server from the repository and to check for each a corresponding data at the repository to determine whether a new or updated software object class is available for download from the repository.