Section 31.7. CONCLUSION

31.7. CONCLUSION

Dynamic aspect-orientation can play a significant role in the development of application awareness. We have encountered a number of scenarios where adaptations cut across a mobile system that needs to be adapted. With dynamic AOP support, one can implement adaptation by weaving aspects through mobile appliances when they enter (or leave) a network (section). There are various ways to provide dynamic AOP support in a Java-based application. We have studied the situation in which the AOP support is provided at the Just-In-Time compiler level. This solution requires minimal changes to the JVM and offers high performance at a low implementation cost. Our experiments in the area of mobile computing and service infrastructures suggest that this cost is worth paying. The aspect-oriented support allowed a small team to design and implement challenging prototypes. Based on this experience, the results are a first encouraging step towards providing full support for application-aware adaptations in mobile environments or in web services.