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The Computer Journal 2003 46(5):542-565; doi:10.1093/comjnl/46.5.542
© 2003 by British Computer Society
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Aspectual Collaborations: Combining Modules and Aspects

Karl Lieberherr1, David H. Lorenz1 and Johan Ovlinger1

1 College of Computer and Information Science, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA Email: lieber@ccs.neu.edu,lorenz@ccs.neu.edu,johan@ccs.neu.edu

Complex behavior often resists clean modularization in object-oriented languages. Aspect-oriented programming tackles this problem by providing flexible module boundaries that can span and partition classes. However, in order to achieve this flexibility, valuable modularity mechanisms, such as encapsulation and external composition, are lost. The ability to separately compile or reason about a modular unit is also compromised. We propose that this tradeoff is not necessary and that by expressing aspects as part of our modules, we can restore the lost modular properties while maintaining aspectual features. As a concrete demonstration, we present the main features of Aspectual Collaborations and show how these interact to combine modularity with aspectual behavior. The expressiveness of Aspectual Collaborations, AspectJ and Hyper/J are compared using a challenge problem, allowing us to estimate the effectiveness of the approach.

* This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grants No. CCR-0098643 and CCR-0204432.


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