Quasi-controlled Experimentations on the Impact of AOP on Software Comprehensibility

Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) emerged as a paradigm to modularize the concerns that lead to interwoven code if implemented using traditional programming techniques. Unfortunately, the new constructs introduced by aspect-oriented (AO) languages result in both: (1) obstacles in modular reasoning, and (2) high coupling between aspects and the augmented modules. There have been numerous attempts to tackle these issues, but none have succeeded without sacrificing obliviousness or losing the power of AOP. In this paper, we propose a new approach to AOP inspired by the classification of aspects by Clifton & Leavens. Our approach reduces coupling in AO programs and restores modular reasoning in case when the aspects are spectators.