A Definition, Overview and Taxonomy of Generic Aspect Languages

Many aspect languages do not provide the degree of aspect reusability initially hoped for. In this paper, we show that the problem stems from lacking support for genericity. Aspect genericity is the ability to express aspect effects that vary depending on the context of a join point, without falling back to run-time reflection. We identify the ability to parameterize aspect effects with meta-variables ranging over base language elements as the technical prerequisite for achieving genericity and describe the design space for generic aspect languages in terms of five basic questions that a language designer should consider. Within this space we review existing proposals for generic aspect languages, and discuss which part of the possible design space they explore. Finally, we identify open problems they are specific to aspect genericity or aggravated in the presence of genericity.

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