Demeter and Aspect-Oriented Programming

Keynote address at STJA, Erfurt, Germany, September 10, 1997

Karl Lieberherr
College of Computer Science
Northestern University
Boston, MA

Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) is an emerging programming 
technique for writing
programs which are easier to evolve than traditional programs.
Demeter and its latest incarnation, called Demeter/Java, is
a perfect example of AOP supporting the aspects Structure,
Behavior (with subaspects Traversals and Behavior Modification),
Object Description, Synchronization, Remote Invocation. 
Demeter supports Adaptive Programming (AP)
where programs adapt, without change, to interesting changes
in the object structure.  We illustrate the benefits of AP (simpler programs,
easier evolution, even partially automated evolution, more understandable
programs) in terms of a bus simulation example and show the link between
AP and the Law of Demeter.

To highlight the general ideas of AOP, the talk uses a few slides developed
by Gregor Kiczales at Xerox PARC.

For the Demeter/AOP viewgraphs, see:
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/research/demeter/talks/erfurt-keynote/erfurt-talk.ppt

Viewing the talk in Notes Pages View mode, gives you further information.

Gregor Kiczales' viewgraphs are available from the AOP home page at
Xerox PARC.

The talk is copyrighted but you have permission to perform the talk and to
produce derivative works, provided you keep the copyright notice and you
send a copy of your derivative works to lieberherr@ccs.neu.edu.