Collaborative Proposal: Advances in Aspect-Oriented Languages, Methods, and Tools

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Abstract: Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) promotes new mechanisms andmethods to improve separation of concerns in software design. AOP is notwell understood in theory, and remains controversial among researchers andpractitioners. One issue is that it relies on implementation-dependent,implicit side effects, contradicting traditional views on abstraction,information hiding, and compositional reasoning. The PIs' goals are toexplicate fundamental mechanisms of AOP; assess and improve the impact ofAOP on decomposition and coupling; and improve our understanding of theinherent complexity of, and potential for, compositional reasoning involvingAOP. The approach is to ground AOP in an underlying ontology of implicitinvocation and then to leverage knowledge in that domain to advance ourunderstanding of AOP. The intellectual significance of the proposed work isin its potential to improve our understanding of AOP, including effects onmodularity and abstraction, and the complexity of specification andverification. Broader impacts are anticipated to flow from regularized andimproved AOP mechanisms, e.g., for event abstraction. The project will alsosupport development and delivery of a senior-level undergraduate and earlygraduate course on AOP.