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On the modular representation of architectural aspects

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Published
  • Alessandro Garcia
  • Christina Chavez
  • Thaís Batista
  • Claudio Sant'Anna
  • Uirá Kulesza
  • Awais Rashid
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Publication date2006
Host publicationSoftware Architecture
EditorsVolker Gruhn, Flavio Oquendo
Place of PublicationBerlin
PublisherSpringer
Pages82-97
Number of pages16
ISBN (print)9783540692713
<mark>Original language</mark>English
EventSoftware Architecture, Third European Workshop, EWSA 2006 - Nantes, France
Duration: 4/09/20065/09/2006

Conference

ConferenceSoftware Architecture, Third European Workshop, EWSA 2006
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityNantes
Period4/09/065/09/06

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science
PublisherSpringer
Volume4344

Conference

ConferenceSoftware Architecture, Third European Workshop, EWSA 2006
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityNantes
Period4/09/065/09/06

Abstract

An architectural aspect is a concern that cuts across architecture modularity units and cannot be effectively modularized using the given abstractions of conventional Architecture Description Languages (ADLs). Dealing with crosscutting concerns is not a trivial task since they affect each other and the base architectural decomposition in multiple heterogeneous ways. The lack of ADL support for modularly representing such aspectual heterogeneous influences leads to a number of architectural breakdowns, such as increased maintenance overhead, reduced reuse capability, and architectural erosion over the lifetime of a system. On the other hand, software architects should not be burdened with a plethora of new ADL abstractions directly derived from aspect-oriented implementation techniques. However, most aspect-oriented ADLs rely on a heavyweight approach that mirrors programming languages concepts at the architectural level. In addition, they do not naturally support heterogeneous architectural aspects and proper resolution of aspect interactions. This paper presents AspectualACME, a simple and seamless extension of the ACME ADL to support the modular representation of architectural aspects and their multiple composition forms. AspectualACME promotes a natural blending of aspects and architectural abstractions by employing a special kind of architectural connector, called Aspectual Connector, to encapsulate aspect-component connection details. We have evaluated the applicability and scalability of the AspectualACME features in the context of three case studies from different application domains.