Automating the discovery of stable domain abstractions for reusable aspects

Domain-driven aspect design aims to support effective reuse of aspects within a product-line or family of software systems. In this paper, we explore the feasibility of automating our approach to discover stable domain abstractions in requirements for the purpose of defining reusable pointcuts. This approach was introduced in earlier work mainly as a manual method. This paper defines an algorithmic procedure for each activity, and discusses to which degree each activity can be automated. The generalization activity (activity 3) is given specific attention, as it is the most complex activity at the heart of the approach. The end result is an algorithmic procedure for (semi-)automatically discovering stable domain abstractions to design effectively reusable pointcuts.