Aspect-Oriented Programming: Radical Research in Modularity

Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is based on a radical exploration of modularity in software development. By presenting new mechanisms that enable better modularization in a number of systems, AOP is driving us to ask fundamental questions about what modularity should mean in our field.

In the past, we have tended to think of modularity in terms of hierarchies of crisply defined blocks, where each block or module defines its interface with the surrounding modules. This idea seems attractive but experience tells us that it is hard to actually get the modularity of the software we build just right. Some issues are hard to code (or design) in a single module, others just don't seem to want to stay where you put them.

Work in AOP and other areas suggests a different conception of modularity, based on crosscutting structures and a more fluid notion of module boundaries.

The talk will present existing AOP techniques and the problems they solve, as well as open practical and research problems ranging from mechanisms to applications, theoretical formulations, and conceptual foundations.

Gregor Kiczales is Professor of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. His work is directed at enabling programmers to write programs that, as much as possible, look like their design. He has pursued this goal in a number of projects, including CLOS and its metaobject protocol, open implementations of system software and middleware, and aspect-oriented programming. He led the Xerox PARC projects that developed aspect-oriented programming and AspectJ. He is author, with Danny Bobrow and Jim des Rivieres of "The Art of the Metaobject Protocol."