Stateful aspects: the case for aspect-oriented modeling

ABSTRACT

In this position paper, the authors argue that Aspect-Oriented Modeling (AOM) technologies have the potential to simplify the deployment and the ability to reason about a category of crosscutting concerns that have been categorized in the literature as stateful aspects. Stateful aspects trigger on a sequence of join points instead of on a single join point. Their trigger condition is history sensitive. We identify three properties of Aspect-Oriented Modeling languages that enable them to provide more natural solutions to the stateful aspect problem. The first factor is the ability of modeling languages to support different system decompositions paradigms. This ability allows a system to be decomposed according to the paradigm that fits the nature of the problem the best. Second, these decompositions allow AOM languages to capture and reason about pointcut descriptors at a higher level of abstraction. Finally, the system decomposition mechanisms can be exploited to advance the compositional expressiveness of aspects defined in AOM languages. The paper concludes with an invitation to our colleagues in the "general purpose" programming community to embrace modeling technologies in the context of automatic code generation.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.2 Design Tools and Techniques

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.3 Coding Tools and Techniques
          Subjects: Object-oriented programming; Structured programming

Keywords:
aspect-oriented modeling, model-driven software development, state machine diagrams