Re8: Aspect-Oriented Programming: Couple of Short Examples

What's the difference? As far as I'm concerned, AOP allows me to create pre- and post-conditions, as does design-by-contract. At some point, the rubber's got to hit the road and, if the 'how' is the same, who cares?

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Comment on Re8: Aspect-Oriented Programming: Couple of Short Examples

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Re^9: Aspect-Oriented Programming: Couple of Short Examples by adrianh (Chancellor) on Aug 06, 2003 at 14:37 UTC
It matters because the "how" and the "why" are different. AOP is not the ability "inject a bunch of arbitrary opcodes at any defined point in the optree". Neither is it just the ability to add pre- and post-conditions to a subroutine. You can have AOP without opcode insertion (e.g. via wrapping subroutines in Perl's Aspect or AspectR in Ruby. You can have opcode insertion without something being AOP - many macro systems for example. You can have pre- and post- conditions without something being AOP (e.g. Class::Contract does not allow you to do AOP). AOP is about creating "aspects" that describe functionality that cross-cuts a traditional OO class hierarchy. If you're interested you might find some of the early Parc papers useful (Aspect-Oriented Programming and RG: A Case-Study For Aspect-Oriented Programming).	[reply]

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Re^9: Aspect-Oriented Programming: Couple of Short Examples
by adrianh (Chancellor) on Aug 06, 2003 at 14:37 UTC

It matters because the "how" and the "why" are different.

AOP is not the ability "inject a bunch of arbitrary opcodes at any defined point in the optree". Neither is it just the ability to add pre- and post-conditions to a subroutine.

You can have AOP without opcode insertion (e.g. via wrapping subroutines in Perl's Aspect or AspectR in Ruby.

You can have opcode insertion without something being AOP - many macro systems for example.

You can have pre- and post- conditions without something being AOP (e.g. Class::Contract does not allow you to do AOP).

AOP is about creating "aspects" that describe functionality that cross-cuts a traditional OO class hierarchy.

If you're interested you might find some of the early Parc papers useful (Aspect-Oriented Programming and RG: A Case-Study For Aspect-Oriented Programming).

[reply]