Using Mixin Layers for Context-Aware and Self-Adaptable Systems

The use of context information in networks of mobile devices is crucial to respond adequately to the user’s expectations. We therefore require that applications dynamically adapt their behaviour according to context changes. Current-day technology typically consists of a series of programming patterns to achieve dynamic behaviour adaptation. However, combining different contexts in such systems has proven to be far from trivial. We propose the use of mixin layers to modularize the contextdependent adaptations separate from the application core logic, together with a composition mechanism that deals with runtime context interactions. Since the classes in mixin layers have no fixed superclasses, they can be combined easily to reflect different combinations of context.