Thesis
Enabling experimentation of aspect-oriented programming languages through a meta-weaver framework
Washington State University
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
2008
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/102777
Abstract
Modern software engineers deal with software systems of enormous complexity. Large corporations hire teams of programmers, who, at least in theory, cooperate to work on programming projects that can involve millions of lines of computer code. Object-oriented programming was designed to help encapsulate these programs, essentially breaking what was once millions of lines into manageable components that can be understood by an individual. Unfortunately, some of these components, by the shear nature of certain programmatic solutions, are related to many parts of a total software system. These components are said to be global (or semi-global) in nature put another way, they are crosscutting concerns. Enter aspect-oriented programming, a new paradigm for managing and encapsulating these, so called, crosscutting concerns. In aspect-oriented programming, programmers have commands, built into the language, that allow them to modify pieces of the code on a global scale. Modern AOP languages, however, tend to be language specific and difficult to modify, in part because many languages have custom rules, complex procedures, and a bizarre syntax. A general system for encapsulating these rules could help alleviate the complexity of designing AOP languages and help enable experimentation on this new class of programming languages. As such, I present CAL, the Customizable Aspect Language, a new system, termed a metaweaver, for creating, changing, modifying, and experimenting with aspect-oriented programming. Unlike traditional aspect-oriented languages, like AspectJ, CAL represents aspects, and even the underlying aspect language, as XML. This allows users of CAL to modify the crosscutting concerns in whatever programming language they are writing in, and also allows CAL to crosscut itself, essentially modifying its own global nature. This simplifies the process of changing and adjusting an aspect-oriented programming language and its corresponding weaving rules.
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Details
- Title
- Enabling experimentation of aspect-oriented programming languages through a meta-weaver framework
- Creators
- Melissa Ann Stefik
- Contributors
- Roger Alexander (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, School of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; Pullman, Wash. :
- Identifiers
- 99900525045001842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis