Towards a taxonomy of syntactic and semantic matching mechanisms for aspect-oriented modeling

Abstract

Aspect-oriented modeling (AOM) techniques have become increasingly popular over the last decade, as they enable improved modularity, separation of concerns, and reusability over conventional requirements and design modeling techniques. However, AOM notations typically employ pointcut matching mechanisms based solely on syntactic elements. In order to make aspects more generic and more robust to changes and to different modeling styles, semantic matching must be better exploited. We present a taxonomy that aims to classify matching mechanisms based on how syntactic or semantic information is used during the matching process, thus defining levels of sophistication for matching mechanisms from simple syntactic approaches to complex semantic approaches. We are particularly investigating how schema matching techniques developed in the database research community are applicable in this context. We illustrate the feasibility and potential benefits through examples based on the Aspect-oriented User Requirements Notation (AoURN). © 2011 Springer-Verlag.