Roles From an Aspect-Oriented Perspective

Roles and aspects have become more and more popular in the recent past. Although similarities as well as differences have been often discussed in literature, there is still no clear separation between both approaches, nor a convincing statement whether there is a difference at all. One reason for this confusion is caused by the fact that there is a variety of role systems as well as aspect-oriented systems which provide quite different sets of mechanisms for similar concepts. This paper provides a unified view on aspect-oriented systems based on design dimensions for aspect-oriented systems, and maps the notion of roles to such design dimensions. Based on this mapping, this paper argues that role systems can be seen as a special kind of aspect-oriented systems having particular characteristics.