Core Framework

The Core Open Wearable Computing Framework (OWCF) is based on the Spring Core Component, which is part of the larger Spring Framework (an open source framework available at http://www.springframework.org).

Spring allows the efficient development and deployment of component based applications. It is available both for the Java and .NET platform.

The Spring Core Component is the basis of the Spring Framework. it provides an integration container for components of an application. In the wearIT@work project the Spring Core is used as basic framework to configure and connect the developed service components of a wearable application. The key features are:

• Based on the IoC (inversion of control) principle.
• Uses dependency injection to provide needed data and objects for components. 
• Allows to assemble and manage the lifecycle of application classes / components which refer to the IoC principle, but handles arbitrary classes well, too.
• Configuration of the application without recompilation. “Deployment” of new/updated components follows a copy-install approach and need only an adaptation of the central configuration file.
• Lifecycle management of singleton components.
• XML or property based configuration files (factored out from the components of the application)
• Application neutral. The Spring Core requires no change in the components or the use of Spring specific libraries and methods. Components can be developed completely independent of Spring and are “Spring-agnostic” which makes them reusable in other environment. There is not a lock-in situation in using Spring Core on component level.

Notice that the usage of the core framework in OWCF is not mandatory. An application may use the services provided by the OWCF without necessarily adopting the core framework. Some of the services of the OWCF take advantage of the above mentioned features of Spring, but this is mainly transparent for the application using such services (the only requirements in these cases is in fact the inclusion of some additional libraries, which are the Sping libraries).

Notice also that the Spring framework offers a broad set of functionalities which are not directly used in the OWCF. Additional features include: implementation of the Model-View-Controller design pattern for web applications, support for Object-Relational-Mapping, Aspect Oriented Programming, etc. All the additional features are optional for the OWCF, but are nevertheless available for application developer who may benefit from them in real world use cases, where their applications must integrate with existing IT software infrastructures.

System Requirements

The core OWCF is available for both the Java platform and the .NET platform: see respectively http://www.springframework.org/ and http://www.springframework.net/

The core OWCF uses Spring 1.2.7.

Maturity Level (?)