Using Structure and Dependency Tracing Patterns for Aspect Composition

Aspects avoid tangled solutions for cross-cutting design concerns. However, there are various reasons why it may be hard to use an aspect language as a solution, even though developers are faced with cross-cutting design concerns. For instance, certain limitations of specific aspect composition (or weaving) mechanisms may hinder the use of aspects or the use is cumbersome. Or because of particular project requirements, such as used language, performance, or memory limitations, developers are not able to use an aspect language. In such cases, developers would benefit from better understanding current aspect composition mechanisms to customize existing techniques or implement (simple) aspect extensions from scratch. For these purposes, we present a pattern language for structure and dependency tracing, and then explain different, existing aspect implementations as sequences through this pattern language.