Explorations of Aspect Oriented Programming - Spring 2002

This seminar (2 credits) focuses on the exploration of a new approach to programming called Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP). The seminar will involve presenting papers and short exploratory programming assignments.

Objectives

1. Learn the motivation for AOP (separation of concern, modularization of crosscutting aspects, aspectual recomposition).
2. Get practical experience with existing AOP tools (AspectJ, JAC)
3. Learn about underlying techniques making AOP possible - including compile-time extensions (AspectJ), generic programming, development tools (AspectJ), runtime meta-programming (MOP: OpenJava, JavaAssist, OpenC++).

Lectures

1. Introduction to AOP: motivation, starting points. Overview of AspectJ.
   • Modularization, top-down decomposition.
   • Cross-cutting concerns: issues which cannot be implemented in a modular manner, but require scattering code in many classes. Example: logging, tracing, debugging, performance monitoring, authorization, transaction, persistence.
   • Problem to be addressed by AOP: how to code cross-cutting concerns in a modular manner, without creating additional coupling.
   • Approach: (1) concern identification, (2) base code, cross-cutting code, weaving (addition of cross-cutting code on top of the base code).
   • AspectJ intro
2. JAC Java Aspect Components (Yuval Nir and Limor Lahiani)
   • Lecture
   • JAC Homepage
   • JAC: A Flexible Framework for AOP in Java.
     Renaud Pawlak, Lionel Seinturier, Laurence Duchien, Gérard Florin, Reflection'01, Kyoto, Japan.
3. AOP in Python (Miki Tebeka)
4. JavAssist (Lior and Olga)
   • Javassist Homepage
   • Load-time Structural Reflection in Java
     Shigeru Chiba
     ECOOP 2000 -- Object-Oriented Programming, LNCS 1850, Springer Verlag, page 313-336, 2000.
5. OpenJava:
   • Lecture (Tanya Kogan and Alex)
   • OpenJava Homepage
   • OpenJava: A Class-Based Macro System for Java
     Michiaki Tatsubori, Shigeru Chiba, Marc-Olivier Killijian and Kozo Itano
     Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1826, Reflection and Software Engineering, , Walter Cazzola, Robert J. Stroud, Francesco Tisato (Eds.), Springer-Verlag, pp.117-133, 2000. [PS]
6. AOP in Scheme
7. JSE (Java Syntax Expander) and JTS (Jakarta Tool Suite)
   • JSE Homepage
   • JTS Homepage
   • JSE
   • Jatha
8. AOP for GUI and Publish/Subscribe programming
   • On Objects and Events
   • Content-based publish-subscribe with Structural Reflection
   • Type-based Publish-Subscribe
9. AOP and CORBA
   • FACET Home Page (Framework for Aspect Composition for an EvenT channel)
   • Aspects in Distributed Environments Elke Pulvermuller, H. Klaeren and A. Speck
     
   • Why Use Aspect-Oriented Technologies (adding persistence to an EJB framework)
   • Towards a pragmatic composition model of Corba services based on AspectJ
     Laurent Bussard (cf Rainbow Home Page)

Assignments

Resources

1. Aspect Oriented Programming portal
2. AspectJ
3. OpenJava
4. Aspect C
5. AMT
6. Composition Filters