Patent ID: 7451433

Claim:
A computer-implemented system stored on a computer readable medium to provide a descriptor class framework, comprising: a descriptor capable of representing modifiable configuration data of a software component in persistent data; one or more descriptor classes, wherein each of the one or more descriptor classes is capable of maintaining one or more properties corresponding to a portion of the descriptor; a descriptor class management component capable of: generating and/or updating the one or more descriptor classes from the descriptor; and generating and/or updating the descriptor from the one or more descriptor classes; and a listener registered with the descriptor class capable of: accepting notification of a proposed change to the descriptor from the descriptor class management component; determining whether to update the descriptor class with the proposed change; and updating the descriptor class with the proposed change, wherein each of the one or more descriptor classes can further comprise: an annotation capable of: defining one of the one or more properties; and defining a getting and/or setting method of one of the one or more properties; a validator capable of validating the one or more properties based on one or more constraints either at parse time or whenever the descriptor class is modified; and a customizer capable of implementing and/or extending the implementation of a software interface with a custom logic inserted in the descriptor class; and generating and/or updating the descriptor class via the following implementations: a runtime implementation, which is read-only and optimized for efficiency at runtime; and a edit time implementation, which is modifiable maintains in an XML document.