In the public svn repository (and in the upcoming development build) you will find a first implementation draft for Transparent Activation (TA). TA will automagically load not-yet-activated objects from database into memory as needed, thus relieving the developer from the burden of having to manually ensure sufficient activation of her persistent object graphs. To work this magic, TA requires the implementation of some callbacks within the persistent classes. These callbacks can either be handcrafted into the code, or they can be injected through a bytecode instrumentation step at build time or load time.

In a first step, we provide a minimalist sample implementation demonstrating how to manually implement TA awareness in your persistent classes for Java and .NET, as well as a basic instrumenting Java classloader and a corresponding .NET assembly instrumentation plugin. Please consider this first step as an invitation to join the discussion around TA design in the product developer forum. Further steps will target handling of 3rd party classes, more convenient setup and configuration, improved performance,... - based on your feedback.

To get started, please check the db4ota(Java) and db4o.net/Db4objects.Db4o.TA(.NET) projects, as well as the db4otaj(Java) project for the instrumenting classloader. You will find more detailed information in the project readme files and in the db4o reference documentation.