Separate Compilation as a Separate Concern: A Framework for Language-Independent Selective Recompilation

Aspect-oriented programming allows developers to modularize cross-cutting concerns in software source code. Concerns are implemented as aspects, which can be re-used across projects. During compilation or at run-time, the cross-cutting aspects are "woven" into the base program code. After weaving, the aspect code is scattered across and tangled...

Encapsulating Software Platform Logic by Aspect-Oriented Programming: A Case Study in Using Aspects for Language Portability

Software platforms such as the Java Virtual Machine or the CLR .NET virtual machine have their own ecosystem of a core programming language or instruction set, libraries, and developer community. Programming languages can target multiple software platforms to increase interoperability or to boost performance. Introducing a new compiler backend...

Using Aspect Orientation in Legacy Environments for Reverse Engineering using Dynamic Analysis: An Industrial Experience Report

Preprint of article published in: Journal of Systems and Software (Elsevier), 82 (4), 2009; doi:10.1016/j.jss.2008.09.031 This paper reports on the challenges of using aspect-oriented programming (AOP) to aid in re-engineering a legacy C application. More specifically, we describe how AOP helps in the important reverse engineering step which...

Renovation of idiomatic crosscutting concerns in embedded systems

Crosscutting concerns are phenomena that are present in almost any (embedded) software system. They arise if the implementation of a concern "a requirement or design decision" does not fit neatly into the modular decomposition of a software system. A crosscutting concern cannot be confined to a single modular unit and therefore becomes scattered...

An Integrated System to Manage Crosscutting Concerns in Source Code

Evolution of software systems accounts for the largest part of their lifecycle and costs. Software engineers therefore, more often than developing new systems, work on complex, existing ones that they have to understand in order to modify them. Understanding such systems requires insight into the various concerns the systems implement, many of...

Simple Crosscutting Concerns Are Not So Simple: Analysing Variability in Large-Scale Idioms-Based Implementations

This paper describes a method for studying idioms-based implementations of crosscutting concerns, and our experiences with it in the context of a real-world, large-scale embedded software system. In particular, we analyse a seemingly simple concern, tracing, and show that it exhibits significant variability, despite the use of a prescribed idiom...