Role annotations and adaptive aspect frameworks

Abstract

This paper presents a model for improving the adaptiveness of AOP frameworks. While a metadata pointcut can be an effective tool for encapsulating and consuming the program events related to a crosscutting concern, AOP languages do not provide a succinct mechanism for binding certain types of crosscutting object references used in advice. We present a design pattern for writing adaptive aspects that consume role-based annotations, enabling a framework to be written in a manner that diminishes the occurrence of the fragile pointcut problem.