A Case Study Implementing Features Using AspectJ

kaestner@cs.cmu.edu (C. Kästner, S. Apel, D. Batory)
Sat, 05 Mar 2016 18:41:39 -0500

Christian Kästner, Sven Apel, and Don Batory. A Case Study Implementing Features Using AspectJ. In Proceedings of the 11st International Software Product Line Conference (SPLC), pages 223--232, Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society, September 2007.

Software product lines aim to create highly configurable programs from a set of features. Common belief and recent studies suggest that aspects are well-suited for implementing features. We evaluate the suitability of AspectJ with respect to this task by a case study that refactors the embedded database system Berkeley DB into 38 features. Contrary to our initial expectations, the results were not encouraging. As the number of aspects in a feature grows, there is a noticeable decrease in code readability and maintainability. Most of the unique and powerful features of AspectJ were not needed. We document where AspectJ is unsuitable for implementing features of refactored legacy applications and explain why.