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Functionality

Since Active X, as implemented in Microsoft's Dynamic HTML, is based in the JAVA language, it turns out that it can also generate persistence. The said applet has in fact been successfully ported to an Active X object. The said "boilerplate code," in the previous section may be altered so that it is an <OBJECT> that is loaded, rather than an <APPLET>. With a few minor adjustments, there is the same functionality.

The applet or object that is continually being reloaded does not need to be entirely identical from page to page. In particular, it may have different parameters, as expressed in varying <PARAM> tags under the <APPLET> tag. Clever use of freedom with parameters can enable massive changes in the classes that are instantiated from one page to the next, generating genuine alterations in the code itself. The fact that init() and start() are called when a page is entered, and stop() is called when the page is left, can be used to do some very useful things: the garbage collector is always there to get rid of discarded elements. The program can vary in ways that would never be possible if it were not being continually re-activated. Alternatively, boolean variables can be set or cleared in an abstract class, or in some other non-instantiated region, which also determine ways in which the said applet or Active X object re-incarnates itself.

It is not necessary to load an applet or object into every page of a site in order to gain persistence. It is enough to load the said applet or object into those pages in which access to the accumulated information is necessary. Browser mechanisms and the functionality of JAVA make sure that the information is maintained (for as long as memory permits) until it is needed. The information will persist even through extended access to pages or sites which know nothing about the applet or object. The applet simply sleeps, in an inactive state, until reloaded through a relative call by some HTML page that desires access to its program code or memory.

Of course, if the applet is inactive, and if memory is needed for other JAVA programs, then the virtual machine will eventually overwrite the inactive program. There is room on the web, therefore, for only a limited number of programs that use this technique. Any particular intranet of course would have its own separate limitation.

To protect the functionality of the Open Source shopping cart, I have taken out a patent on the techniques used to develop persistence. As long as developers change the source code of the Open Source shopping cart in such a way that the program remains a shopping cart with an associated database cache, then they have permission to use these patented techniques. This should protect the bandwidth, and I retain rights to any use of these techniques elsewhere.

Persistence of memory throughout other pages or sites is not a security issue because an applet or Active X object is resurrected (or made accessible to other programs) only if it resides at the same codebase, or at some relative offset.

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