Modular Co-Versioning in a Dynamically Linked Runtime Environment

A computing device, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the memory comprises program instructions that when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform:
• executing a class loader within a runtime environment;
• loading, at runtime by the class loader, a class from a runtime linkable, multi-version library, wherein the multi-version library is configured to include multiple versions of classes, wherein all versions of a respective class correspond to an identical class signature for the respective class;
• wherein said loading comprises:
• determining whether the multi-version library includes a version of the class associated with a current version of a software development kit for implementing software executable within a respective current version of the runtime environment within which the class loader is executing;
• and
• in response to determining that the multi-version library does include the version of the class associated with the current version of the software development kit, loading, from the multi-version library, the version of the class associated with the current version of the software development kit.

A computer implemented method, comprising:

• building, by a computing device comprising a hardware processor, a runtime linkable, multi-version library comprising multiple versions of a class, wherein the multiple versions all correspond to an identical class signature;
• wherein said building comprises:
• storing in the multi-version library a base version of the multiple versions of the class, wherein the base version of the class does not correspond to any particular version of a software development kit;
• and
• storing in the multi-version library one or more other versions of the multiple versions of the class, wherein each of the one or more other versions correspond to respective versions of the software development kit.