Re: Is bytecode manipulation an aspect-oriented programming technique?

Hi Bruno,

just to wrap up what we discussed at AOSD... :-)

Am 16.03.2006 um 22:37 schrieb Bruno Harbulot:
> To answer the question "Is bytecode manipulation an aspect-oriented
> programming technique?", I would say that bytecode manipulation and
> aspect-orientation are two orthogonal concepts. It's only an AO
> technique if you use it in an AO style.
>
> This doesn't mean that the JIP presented in the paper is not AOP,  
> but as
> I said in my previous post, that is where I think the main weakness of
> the paper is: it claims to do AOP, but it doesn't quite define which
> parts of the system correspond to which bits of the usual AO  
> terminology
> (except the word "aspect"). It's therefore hard to say whether it's AO
> or not.

As far as I know, the system presented in the DeveloperWorks article  
only shows the bare essentials of how the much more complex JIP  
system operates. JIP seems to implement a domain-specific AOP  
language, where the domain is application profiling.

The system presented in the article claims to employ an AO technique,  
to which I still object. My (clarified) reason is as follows. The  
system clearly separates the behavioural part of a profiling concern  
in that this part is implemented in two static methods in the  
Profiler class. But that's not all what AOP is about (in my opinion).  
It must be said where that behaviour applies. The way this is done is  
by means of applying a visitor to application bytecodes. There is no  
declarative description of a "pointcut" or whatever.

I believe that declarative expressiveness is the key, not just the  
application of some mechanism.

Best,

Michael

--
Dipl.-Ing. Michael Haupt            [email protected]
Software Technology Group           Phone:  ++49 (0) 6151-16-5306
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