JavaCtx: seamless toolchain integration for context-oriented programming

Abstract

Context-oriented programming is an emerging paradigm addressing at the language level the issue of dynamic software adaptation and modularization of context-specific concerns. In this paper we propose JavaCtx, a tool which employs coding conventions to generate the context-aware semantics for Java programs and subsequently weave it into the application. The contribution of JavaCtx is twofold: the design of a set of coding conventions which allow to write context-oriented software in plain Java and the concept of context-oriented semantics injection, which allows to introduce the context-aware semantics through standard aspect-oriented programming. Both of these points allow to seamless integrate JavaCtx in the existing industrial-strength appliances and so ease the development of context-oriented software in consolidated industrial settings.