Prototyping and composing aspect languages: Using an aspect interpreter framework

Abstract

Domain specific aspect languages (DSALs) are becoming more popular because they can be designed to represent recurring concerns in a way that is optimized for a specific domain. However, the design and implementation of even a limited domain-specific aspect language can be a tedious job. To address this, we propose a framework that offers a fast way to prototype implementations of domain specific aspect languages. A particular goal of the framework is to be general enough to support a wide range of aspect language concepts, such that existing language concepts can be easily used, and new language concepts can be quickly created. We briefly introduce the framework and its underlying model, as well as the workflow used when implementing DSALs. Subsequently, we show mappings of several domain specific aspect languages to demonstrate the framework. Since in our approach the DSALs are mapped to a common model, the framework provides an integrating platform allowing us to compose programs that use aspects written in multiple DSALs. The framework also provides explicit mechanisms to specify composition of advices written in multiple DSALs. © 2008 Springer-Verlag.