Integrating aspect-orientation and structural annotations to support adaptive middleware

ABSTRACT

To anticipate or not to anticipate --- that is the question, regarding adaptive middleware in the area of ubiquitous computing. Anticipation can guarantee that both the adapted and the adapting component work together safely, but it limits the scenario space to some predictable well-known cases. This holds even more when statically typed languages are used, as we assume here. A second problem is a semantic gap between the business logic that triggers the adaptation and the technological demands of the adaptation that must be solved on the implementation level. We discuss current approaches and describe a new approach combining aspect-oriented programming with structural metadata to cope with both problems. An example illustrates how our approach will work in practice.

REFERENCES

• 1: AspectJ Compiler. http://eclipse.org/aspectj/.
• 2: Pascal Costanza , Robert Hirschfeld, Language constructs for context-oriented programming: an overview of ContextL, Proceedings of the 2005 symposium on Dynamic languages, p.1-10, October 18-18, 2005, San Diego, California [doi>10.1145/1146841.1146842]
• 3: P. Costanza, R. Hirschfeld, and W. D. Meuter. Effcient Layer Activation for Switching Context-dependent Behavior. In Joint Modular Languages Conference 2006 (JMLC2006). Springer LNCS, Oxford, England, 2006.
• 4: A. Kellens, K. Mens, J. Brichau, and K. Gybels. Managing the Evolution of Aspect-Oriented Software with Model-based Pointcuts. In D. Thomas, editor, Proceedings of the 20th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP), pages 501--525. Springer, LNCS 4067, 2006.
• 5: G. Kniesel and T. Rho. A Definition, Overview and Taxonomy of Generic Aspect Languages. L'Objet, to appear, 2006.
• 6: Julia Kuck , Melanie Gnasa, Context-Sensitive Service Discovery Meets Information Retrieval, Proceedings of the Fifth IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops, p.601-605, March 19-23, 2007 [doi>10.1109/PERCOMW.2007.32]
• 7: H. Mügge, T. Rho, D. Speicher, P. Bihler, and A. B. Cremers. Programming for Context-based Adaptability --- Lessons learned about OOP, SOA, and AOP. SAKS Workshop in conjunction with GI/ITG-Tagung Kommunikation in verteilten Systemen, March 2007.
• 8: H. Mügge, T. Rho, M. Winandy, M. Won, A. B. Cremers, P. Costanza, and R. Englert. Towards context-sensitive intelligence. In R. Morrison and F. Oquendo, editors, Proceedings of European Workshop on Software Architecture. Spinger LNCS 3527, 2005.
• 9: OSGi Alliance. OSGi Service Platform Service Compendium - Release 4, August 2005.
• 10: T. Rho and G. Kniesel. Uniform Genericity for Aspect Languages, Technical Report IAI-TR-2004-4, Computer Science Department III, University of Bonn. In Uniform Genericity for Aspect Languages, Technical Report IAI-TR-2004-4, Computer Science Department III, University of Bonn. Dec 2004.
• 11: T. Rho, M. Schmatz, and A. B. Cremers. Towards context-sensitive service aspects, workshop on object technology for ambient intelligence and pervasive computing, in conjunction with 20th european conference on object oriented programming (ecoop 06), july 3--7, nantes, france, July 2006.
• 12: U. P. Schultz, E. Corry, and K. V. Lund. Virtual Machines for Ambient Computing: A Palpable Computing Perspective. In Workshop on Object Technology for Ambient Intelligence at ECOOP, 2005.
• 13: Éric Tanter , Noury M. N. Bouraqadi-Saâdani , Jacques Noyé, Reflex - Towards an Open Reflective Extension of Java, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Metalevel Architectures and Separation of Crosscutting Concerns, p.25-43, September 25-28, 2001

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.1 PROCESSOR ARCHITECTURES
      C.1.3 Other Architecture Styles

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
        D.2.12 Interoperability