Implementing Bounded Aspect Quantification in AspectJ

kaestner@cs.cmu.edu (C. Kästner, S. Apel, G. Saake)
Sat, 05 Mar 2016 18:41:39 -0500

Christian Kästner, Sven Apel, and Gunter Saake. Implementing Bounded Aspect Quantification in AspectJ. In Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Reflection, AOP and Meta-Data for Software Evolution (RAM-SE), pages 111--122, Magdeburg, Germany: University of Magdeburg, July 2006.

The integration of aspects into the methodology of stepwise software development and evolution is still an open issue. This paper focuses on the global quantification mechanism of nowadays aspect-oriented languages that contradicts basic principles of this methodology. One potential solution to this problem is to bound the potentially global effects of aspects to a set of local development steps. We discuss several alternatives to implement such bounded aspect quantification in AspectJ. Afterwards, we describe a concrete approach that relies on meta-data and pointcut restructuring in order to control the quantification of aspects. Finally, we discuss open issues and further work.