[aosd-discuss] design patterns

[Mohamed Mancona Kande]

 Hi,

Considering concerns as forces of patterns is a very interesting view 
that we have been working on for quite a while now. For instance, in my 
PhD thesis (available at 
http://ahdoc.epfl.ch/EPFL/theses/2003/2796/EPFL_TH2796.pdf), I have been 
using (kinds of) concerns as the "driving forces" for software 
architecture, including design and architectural patterns. Concerning 
the design and architectural patterns, my motivation was that it is 
currently not possible to localize the realization of forces (kinds of 
concerns aka "dimensions" as defined in MDSOC) of patterns.

You can find a first concern-oriented architectural pattern, called the 
On-Demand Remodularization Pattern (ODR Pattern), in my thesis which we 
have further refined and discussed at the 4th Aspect-Oriented Modeling 
(AOM) workshop at the last UML conference 
(http://www.csam.iit.edu/~oaldawud/AOM/kande-odr-paper.pdf).

As another "concerned citizen", I do believe that concern-oriented 
thinking will help improve the way we instantiate patterns for solving  
design and architectural problems.

Regards,
Mohamed Kandé

suttonsm at verizonesg.net wrote:

>
> This is a response to a recent posting by Pascal Costanza (which was a 
> response to still other postings, which I've omitted for the sake of 
> brevity).  He begins by saying:
>
> > I think the key to understanding the relationship between patterns and
> > language extensions (including, but not limited to AOP) is the concept
> > of forces.
> >
> > A good introduction of the term "force" can be found at
> > 
> http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/docs/patterns-intro.html#PatternElements 
>
> > (also follow the link mentioned there).
> >
> > A pattern resolves a recurring set of forces. Some of those forces
> > result directly from the problem that a pattern solves. However, more
> > often than not, a pattern also involves forces that result from the
> > design of the language that is used to express the solution.
>
> I generally agree and think this is a good statement of the 
> (challenging) context to be analyzed in this area.
>
> As a "concerned citizen", I would just like to point out that from an 
> AOSD perspective we may say that these "forces" represent concerns. 
> Languages address a set of linguistic concerns in a particular way, 
> and patterns provide mechanisms for addressing additional concerns and 
> resolving concern mismatches between an application language and 
> particular applications.
>
> We may argue over terminology if we enjoy that :-), but there is a 
> practical implication of the concern-oriented view of languages and 
> patterns.  That is, we can build integrated concern models of 
> languages, patterns, applications, application domains, and so on (for 
> example, using Cosmos or something like that).  Those models, in turn, 
> can enable uniform and comprehensive analysis of both our problems and 
> solutions, individually and in combination.  Knowledge is power, and 
> the resulting knowledge of our software systems would empower us to 
> work more effectively in many different ways.
>
> Regards,
>
> Stan Sutton
> suttonsm at verizonesg.net

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