representing architectural aspects with a symmetric approach
Aspect-oriented (AO) techniques are emerging as promising approaches to enhance the representation of crosscutting concerns throughout the software lifecycle. This includes new AO specification mechanisms for the architectural design stage that is at the heart of the software process. However, existing modelling languages have failed short to provide simple and scalable notations for visually representing the so-called "architectural aspects". This paper reports our ongoing effort on the definition of a visual architecture representation for aspect-oriented systems. Our proposal follows a symmetric approach and provides a more expressive set of visual elements in order to: (i) provide a more intuitive notation for expressing aspectual compositions, (ii) facilitate a symbiotic transition of AO requirements specifications to AO architecture designs, (iii) make the transition of architectural descriptions to AO detailed designs more straightforward, and (iv) improve the early detection of modularity anomalies in aspect-oriented design. We discuss the advantages and drawbacks of our modelling proposal in terms of two applications from different domains.
architecture aspects symmetric visual notation