Our Surf Recommendation:
Website Containing AOP Blogs

The Web site Manageability.org contains a range of Blogs concerning different themes from the area of software development. One Blog category is dedicated to the hot topic Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP), providing a large arsenal of readable and exciting information. Come with us on a little expedition!

The Manageability.org Web site is carried out as a private initiative by the OO expert and former IBM employee Carlos E. Perez. The Web site’s goal is to collect Blogs related to certain technical topics from the software area. These are, indeed, supplemented by a Wiki, links etc. – but the large Blog archives are the center of attention. The contributions are written to a high technical standard and are certainly worth reading.

"AOP is the ability to assert quantified statements over programs written by oblivious programmers."
(cit. from Robert Filman on Manageability.org)

One of many questions discussed there is, for instance, if aspects will replace components in the long term? Both concepts provide mechanisms for the encapsulation as well as for the extension of functionality. But, AOP does not include the notion of a context, i.e. of a protocol defining the interaction with a container (see “Do Aspects Supercede Components?”).

Assumptions from Gregor Kiczales, well known as the “father” of AspectJ, are intensely discussed. An example is the discussion about the usage of tags instead of pointcuts. While the latter represent a loose coupling between classes and aspects, conforming exactly to the definition of aspects, tags are much more easier to define. Perez points out that an intelligent IDE could dynamically show the tags according to the current pointcut definitions (see “Should Meta Tags Be Considered Harmful?”).

In the AOP area the different approaches to implement a dynamic AOP are quite remarkable. Concerning this topic, there is a contribution referencing CaesarJ and JFluid as two exemplary implementations, as well as the well-known publication “AOP – The Fun Has Just Begun” from Kiczales, in particular (see “The Emergence of Fluid AOP”).

By the way, the theme “dynamic AOP” leads to the question which variabilities should be resolved at runtime and which ones at compile time (generation time?). This is a current research topic – not just limited to AOP – and a matter of analysis in the PESOA project. But, why not have a look around for yourself?

You find the AOP Blogs at
http://www.manageability.org/blog/aspects