Pluggable reflection: decoupling meta-interface and implementation

Reflection remains a second-class citizen in current programming models, where it´s assumed to be imperative and tightly bound to its implementation. In contrast, most object-oriented APIs allow interfaces to vary independently of their implementations. Components take this separation a step further by describing unforeseeable attributes-the key to pluggable third-party components. This paper describes how reflection can benefit from a similar evolutionary path.