On the benefits of quantification in AspectJ systems

Brazilian Computer Society. Journal

Marco Tulio Valente¹  Cesar Couto¹  Sé²  Jaqueline Faria³ 

[1]Department of Computer Science, UFMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

[2]Informatics Center, UFPE, Recife, Brazil

[3]Institute of Informatics, PUC Minas, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

关键词: Aspect-oriented programming;    AspectJ;    Quantification;    Separation of Concerns;    Metrics;    Refactoring;   

DOI  :  10.1007/s13173-010-0008-0

学科分类：农业科学（综合）

来源: Springer U K

【 摘 要 】

In this paper, we argue that the most favorable uses of aspects happen when their code relies extensively on quantified statements, i.e., statements that may affect many parts of a system. When this happens, aspects better contribute to separation of concerns, since the otherwise duplicated and tangled code related to the implementation of a crosscutting concern is confined in a single block of code. We provide in the paper both qualitative and quantitative arguments in favor of quantification. We also propose two new metrics to capture in a simple way the amount of quantification employed in the aspects of a given system. Finally, we describe an Eclipse plugin, called ConcernMetrics that estimates the proposed metrics directly from the object-oriented code of an existing system, i.e., before crosscutting concerns are extracted to aspects. Our main motivation is to help developers and maintainers to decide in a cost-effective way if it is worthwhile to use aspects in their systems.

【 授权许可】

CC BY