3 - Using AOP to Organize Your Code

Abstract

Object Oriented Programming (OOP) allows users to map entire classes to files. Conventional wisdom for OOP programmers is to have one class per file and have the file name be the name of the class. AOP, on the other hand, lets users organize their code by any kind of aspects. They are no longer limited to organizing the code by class—it can be done by functionality, which is of much importance. It can also be organized by class, or by class and functionality, or by any other scheme, or combination of schemes. This chapter explains how Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) can be used for coding and its advantages for coding. There are several advantages for using AOP for the organization of code. It makes it easier to find particular pieces of code, isolate them for review, and assign people to work on particular functionality. Multiple people can work on the same aspect without getting involved in revision control merges. AOP is also used in encapsulating crosscutting concerns and removing code scattering and tangling problems. It becomes easier to reuse code because one can separate the core functionality (which is where value is added) from the infrastructure needed to tie it to a particular verification environment. However, making an AOP code searchable to create different views requires manual steps, which limits the number of aspects one can have in AOP. Further, identifying aspects that one wants to use in AOP code is difficult as there are no hard and fast rules related to that.