Models and Aspects - Handling Crosscutting Concerns in MDSD

Abstract

This report summarizes the presentations and discussions of the Third Workshop on Models and Aspects Handling Crosscutting Concerns in MDSD, held in conjunction with the 21st European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP) in Berlin, Germany on July, 31, 2007. This workshop was motivated by the fact that both Model-Driven Software Development (MDSD) and Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD) are important new paradigms that both promise to change the way software is developed. Both approaches provide opportunities for concern separation. AOSD separates concerns horizontally and MDSD enables concern separation vertically. This workshop identified two key integration strategies to achieve the complementary benefits of both aspect-oriented and model-driven development. The first is the use of aspects within transformation languages to separate transformational concerns making model transformations easier to write. The second is the separation of concerns within models defined as aspects. This workshop established the key benefits of these. The major benefit of the first is easing the complexity of development and maintainability of transformations. The major benefit of the second is means to reduce the problems associated with aspects, such as, aspect interactions, fragile pointcuts and understandability.