Dynamic Multi-level Separation of Concerns

This project has focused on reflective architectures as the means to provide separation of concerns with dynamic association and handling of conflicts between these concerns.
 

A Bit of History
At first we focused on a two-level architecture which supported dynamic association between the cross-cutting aspects and the functional or base components. This was implemented in Smalltalk and then Java, with the characteristic that the incorporation of these additional properties did not require modifications to the original application code. This naturally developed into the proposal of multi-level separation of concerns, so that the interaction between the concerns was not limited. The need then arose for the handling of conflicts between competing concerns or aspects.
At the same time, other work was focusing on the development of architectures with a flexible reflective mechanism, such that they could be used for applications with the need for different reflective capabilities.
A framework combining all this work has now been developed, and a tool for the instantiation of the framework has been implemented. This tool - Alpheus - assists the user in the specification of all the concerns of the system, grouping objects with similar functionality into separate planes (or concerns). Associations between components from different planes and the specification of potential conflicts between components, are also specified with the guidance of the tool. Alpheus then generates the Java code corresponding to the specified application, instantiating the reflective framework.
 

Publications

• F. Valentino, A. Ramos, C. Marcos, and J. Pryor. A Framework for the Development of Multi-Level Reflective Applications. Second Argentine Symposium on Software Engineering. ASSE 2001.  Buenos Aires Argentina. September 10-12, 2001. [asse2001.pdf]
• Claudia Marcos. Patrones de Diseño como Entidades de Primera Clase. PhD. thesis. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (UNCPBA), Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Instituto de Sistemas ISISTAN, Abril 2001.
• J.Pryor, N.Bastán and M.Campo. A Reflective Approach to Support Aspect Oriented Programming in Java. In Proceedings of ASSE’2000, 29 JAIIO. Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 2000. [asse2000.ps]
• J.Pryor and N.Bastán. A Java Meta-level System for the Dynamic Support of Aspects. International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications, Las Vegas, USA. June, 2000. CSREA Press. [pdpta2000.ps]
• J.Pryor & N.Bastán. A Reflective Architecture for the Support of Aspect-Oriented Programming in Smalltalk. Position paper at the ECOOP’99 Workshop on Aspect Oriented Programming. Lisbon, Portugal, June 1999. [ecoop1999.ps]

Alpheus
Alpheus is a tool for the construction of reflective applications in Java, assists in the specification of cross-cutting concerns, associations and conflicts.
 

Members:
Claudia Marcos
Jane Pryor
 

Students:
Natalio Bastán
Andrés Ramos
Federico Valentino

Last update: 25th September, 2001.