[aosd-discuss] "AOP considered harmful"

[Sean Gilbertson]

     It seems that, if your aspects' advice truly target what they're  
meant to address (and the goal of AOP is therefore pursued), then it  
should be obvious where they will act.  Perhaps debugging can be more  
complicated - I don't feel qualified to comment, since I haven't used  
AOP enough - but can it really be more complicated or confusing than  
OOP debugging?.

On Apr 25, 2005, at 12:11 PM, Eric Tanter wrote:

>>> as one of the authors of the referenced paper, just a short note:  
>>> This
>>> paper was written for a panel discussion, and indeed intended to be
>>> provocative.
>>>
>>> However, I think that AOP as we see it now can result in reduced  
>>> program
>>> understandability, if used in the wrong way. Additionally AOP imho
>>> strongly depends on tool support (thanks for ajdt, great tool in  
>>> that
>>> context!).
>>>
>>
>> I disagree with the above. AOP makes great tool support like ajdt  
>> *possible*
>> rather than "strongly depending on them"! Pointcuts make the  
>> crosscutting
>> structure, which implicitly exists anyway in an OO equivalent,  
>> explicit and
>> hence displayable by a "stupid" tool. By this, it actually  
>> improves overall
>> program understanding rather than reducing it, IMHO.
>>
>
> But what Max said -which I believe is true- is that without tool  
> support, you cannot determine what is going to happen at execution  
> just by looking at your code unless you're good enough to 'expand'  
> predicates in your mind at any time. Type polymorphism in OOP is  
> arguably much easier to grasp in one's head that pointcut shadows.
> So yes, good tools support is even more necessary for AOP I guess.  
> And still, another point that is made in the paper is that even  
> with tool support, if your pointcuts have dynamic parts, you can  
> only know what aspects 'potentially' apply.
>
> -- Eric
>
>
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