Chapter18.Aspect-Orientation in the Software Lifecycle: Fact and Fiction

Chapter 18. Aspect-Orientation in the Software Lifecycle: Fact and Fiction

PEDRO J. CLEMENTE, JUAN HERNEÁNDEZ, JOSÉ LUIS HERRERO, JUAN MANUEL MURILLO, AND FERNANDO SEÁNCHEZ

One of the advantages of aspect-oriented approaches is that they allow software developers to react easily to unanticipated changes in existing software systems, while promoting reusability of already tested and designed software components. Nevertheless, people are reluctant to apply AOP in serious and large projects, not because of a lack of good aspect-oriented programming languages and tools, but because they do not have aspect-oriented modeling and design techniques at their disposal. In this chapter, we share our experience from the national Spanish project "Reusable Software Components for Open Systems." One of the main lessons learned is that aspect-orientation should be taken into account in all the stages of the software lifecycle, in particular, the design level. We show the facts and fictions of AOP when using it with and without an aspect-oriented design. The reader is introduced to aspect-oriented design techniques using two different approaches: an extension to UML and an extension to architectural description languages. While the first approach is relatively mature, the second can be considered an ongoing project that has already produced some significant results. In both cases, software developers have a better understanding of the aspect-oriented system to be developed. This has reduced the developers' fears about applying AOSD techniques.