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

摘要：面向方面编程(AOP)提出了新的机制和方法来改善软件设计中的关注点分离。AOP在理论上还没有得到很好的理解，在研究人员和实践者中仍然存在争议。一个问题是，它依赖于实现，隐含的副作用，与关于抽象、信息隐藏和组合推理的传统观点相矛盾。PI的目标是阐明AOP的基本机制；评估和改进AOP对分解和耦合的影响；并提高我们对涉及AOP的组成推理的内在复杂性和潜力的理解。方法是将AOP建立在隐式调用的底层本体中，然后利用该领域的知识来促进我们对AOP的理解。拟议工作的智力意义在于它有可能提高我们对AOP的理解，包括对模块化和抽象的影响，以及规范和验证的复杂性。更广泛的影响预计将来自规则化和改进的AOP机制，例如，用于事件抽象。该项目还将支持开发和提供关于AOP的高级本科生和早期研究生课程。

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.