I just finished my talk at JavaZone 2008 about bytecode manipulation.

You can download the presentation's PDF file from:

http://uwyn.com/download/bytecode_real_world.pdf

This is the abstract:

Bytecode Manipulation in the Real World

Bytecode manipulation has become increasingly popular over the last years. It is used by JPA implementations, application servers, AOP libraries, web frameworks, monitoring systems, profilers, clustering solutions, scripting languages, workflow engines, and much more. In fact, most of today's applications will most probably rely on byte code manipulation, often even without realizing.

Application developers however seem to be overly careful and often frown upon bytecode manipulation as an arcane art that is risky and difficult to understand. This presentation will show you that it's easier than you think. We'll go over concise examples that illustrate the concepts. Distinct patterns, coming from different domains, will give you ideas about adopting byte code manipulation for your own products. You'll learn arguments to reassure skeptics and see how the manipulation can plugged into your tool chain. We'll finish off with tips and tricks to write maintainable code with the ASM library.

After this session you'll see byte code manipulation as another tool in your arsenal and you'll have a good picture of how to start using it yourself.

Outline:

• What is bytecode manipulation?
• Some popular projects that use it
• Don't be afraid
• Plug in the manipulation
• Best practices