Aspects at the right time

  • Authors:

  • Pablo Sánchez;Lidia Fuentes;Andrew Jackson;Siobhán Clarke

  • Affiliations:

  • Dpto. de Lenguajes y Ciencias de la Computación, ETSI Informática, Universidad de Málaga, Spain;Dpto. de Lenguajes y Ciencias de la Computación, ETSI Informática, Universidad de Málaga, Spain;Dept. of Computer Science, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland;Dept. of Computer Science, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

  • Venue:
  • Transactions on aspect-oriented software development IV
  • Year:
  • 2007

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

At different stages of the aspect development lifecycle, there are different properties of aspects that need to be considered. Currently, there is no integrated approach to defining the appropriate characteristics of aspects at the appropriate stage, or of tracing decisions made for evolution purposes. Our focus is on the early aspects stages of development -- requirements analysis, architecture design, and detailed design -- where there are already many different approaches that provide useful constructs and mechanisms to capture the different properties of aspects that are in play at the relevant stage. However, it is difficult to move between stages using different approaches. In this paper, we describe an aspect mapping from requirements to architecture to design: in particular, Theme/Doc (requirements), CAM (architecture) and Theme/UML (design). The mapping includes heuristics to guide as to the right time to specify the right aspect properties. In addition, it allows aspect decisions captured at each stage to be refined at later stages as appropriate. While this provides an integrated approach for aspect specification, it is not enough to facilitate the traceability of aspect decisions. To this end, we also describe a means to record decisions that capture the alternatives considered and the decision justification. This information is crucial for managing aspect evolution at the right time.