Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Aspect-oriented software development

Abstract

AOSD 2006 is the fifth annual conference on Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD). The conference is the flagship event for papers, presentations and demonstrations in state-of-the-art in AOSD research and practice. The conference, held in Bonn Germany, March 20-24, 2006, attracts researchers and practitioners in this area from all over the world as well as a large body of research students. This volume comprises of the papers of the research track of the conference.Aspect-oriented software development provides systematic support for identification, modularization, representation and composition of crosscutting concerns. Interest in AOSD tools, techniques and methodologies is growing significantly in both industry and academia. Researchers are continuously pushing the boundaries of established AOSD techniques and practices while practitioners are actively building on this research to develop tools and platforms targeted at industry. The program of AOSD 2006 reflects this continuous evolution in AOSD research and practice. The research papers track includes 20 papers, each reviewed by at least three referees and chosen from the 96 submissions at the program committee meeting. We believe the result is an exciting research program that highlights a transition towards empirical studies, metrics and testing methods for evaluation and validation of aspect-oriented systems. Papers on the software process, concern modeling and concern semantics during analysis and design reflect the growing interest in the emerging set of Early Aspects approaches. A number of papers also focus on new types of language constructs and join point models hence depicting the trends in evolution of aspect-oriented programming approaches. Others discuss aspect composition and interaction issues, which are critical for maintaining consistency of aspect compositions. The program thus provides a wide-ranging perspective from evolution of established aspect-oriented languages and concepts to development of new mechanisms for aspect modeling, evaluation and validation.Research track papers present mature scientific and engineering activities that have been vetted by a rigorous refereeing process. But the conference is by no means just the papers of the research track: there is considerable experience in applying AO technologies and a great number of emerging ideas. The conference features an industry track for practitioners as well as birds of a feature (BoF) sessions and demonstrations of new AOSD tools and techniques. A panel discussion, chaired by Kevin Sullivan of University of Virginia and involving leading researchers and practitioners, is devoted to important open problems for future research in AOSD. The nine workshops and seven tutorials reflect a similar breadth of topics ranging from discussions on aspects in teaching and early development stages to language implementation and evolution issues through to design and implementation of specific aspect-oriented programming platforms.A critical element to assuring the continuing evolution of a field is nurturing new talent. With this in mind, the conference also includes two events: the student extravaganza, a poster event where students can present their emerging thesis work to suggestions from experts in the field, and the one-day spring school, where students new to the field can learn about the issues and open problems.The conference program also includes two exciting keynote speeches from distinguish figures. Professor Carliss Baldwin of Harvard Business School provides insights into the financial and economical implications of new designs and artifacts. Dr. Richard Gabriel of Sun Microsystems Laboratories, winner of the ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Award, highlights how ultra large scale systems challenge our existing perceptions of abstraction, modularity and encapsulation.