[PRL] legacy code and AOP

[Shriram Krishnamurthi]

Matthias Felleisen wrote:

> If this is true and AOP is also about change huge code bases to do the 
> right thing _after the fact_

There are two views of AOP: (1) as a refactoring device, and (2) as
("just") another modularity mechanism that should be integrated into
all aspects of the development cycle.  I used to take view (1).
Gregor has persuasively convinced me that at least for him, (2) is the
right way to think about AOP, and (1) doesn't register.  So there are
many in "the AOP community" who would disagree with the claim I've
quoted above.

[Then again, I found out yesterday that there are purported leaders of
the AOP community who don't even know that aspects can interfere with
one another, so it's hard to tell what, if anything, "the community"
even knows as a whole.]

> has anyone thought of developing an AOP system for C

Yes.  I believe Gregor and Yvonne Coady, in FSE 2001, talked about
AspectC in the context of OS refactoring.  Julia Lawall's work is not
quite an aspect system for C, but has a DSL component that compiles
into C that performs aspect-like maintenance.

> Is CS really guilty of always solving engineering problems that
> nobody has created yet?

As Tuco says in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: "When you need to
shoot, shoot -- don't talk!" (-:

Shriram