Important dates:

• Paper submission deadline: April 22 (extended from April 7), 2003
• Notification of acceptance: May 15, 2003
• Final copies of accepted papers due: May 30, 2003
• Workshop: July 21, 2003

Workshop Description

Aspect-oriented software development (AOSD) is a new approach for modularizing complex software systems. As an extension to other software development paradigms, such as object-oriented development, it allows to capture and modularize concerns that crosscut a software systems in so-called aspects. Aspects are constructs that can be identified and manipulated throughout the development process.

Much work has been done to develop aspect-oriented languages, support, and models for aspect-oriented software development. With the growing acceptance of AOSD as a software development technique, dedicated support for analysis of aspectual artifacts is needed at the various stages of software development. Developers need to be able to understand, visualize, specify, verify and test aspect-oriented requirements, architectures, designs and programs to make it an industrially viable technology.

In this workshop, we will discuss where analysis of aspect-oriented software is needed, what the challenges are and how these challenges can be addressed. We are interested in discussing these questions in the context of the whole software development life cycle.

The target audience includes people interested in software artefact analysis and aspect-oriented programmnig. The workshop is intended for people who have had some exposure to either or both topics.

Goal of this workshop is to create a fruitful discussion about the analysis of aspect-oriented systems. By bringing together different research communities that work in this field, we hope to achieve cross-fertilization and exchange of ideas.

Topics of Interest

Areas of interest include but are not limited to:

• Analysis of aspect-oriented artifacts (requirements, specifications, architectures, designs, programs);
• Static and dynamic analysis;
• Identification and resolution of aspect interactions;
• Specification of AO systems;
• Verification of AO systems;
• Visualization to enhance understanding of AO requirements, design, programs, etc.;
• Testing approaches for AO systems;
• Debugging techniques;
• Run-time inspection of AO programs;
• Tool support for above

Paper Submissions

Interested parties are invited to submit a position, vision or experience paper of 6 pages or less. Submitted papers should provide a clear description of an area of analysis required for aspect-oriented software development, and a description of a proposed approach to developing such tools and techniques. If the authors have a system that they wish to demonstrate, the paper should include a brief description of the system and a demonstration scenario. We particularly encourage submissions on adapting established analysis techniques for OO systems to an AO context. Workshop attendance is by invitation only.

Submissions are accepted in PDF, Postscript or Word format. All submissions should be send by email to AAOS 2003 organizers (aaos2003@comp.lancs.ac.uk) by April 22, 2003. Authors will be notified of the acceptance or rejection of their submissions by May 15, 2003. Final copies of accepted papers are due by May 30, 2003.

Workshop Format

The workshop will be one full day, divided approximately evenly between discussion sessions and presentations.

The first part of the workshop day will be divided into sessions, each of which will focus on a particular topic of interest. In each session authors of some of the accepted papers will be invited to present a short talk and/or demonstration. After the presentations, we will hold an open discussion period led jointly by the speakers for that particular topic and a member of the workshop committee.

The second part of the day will be used for small group discussion on issues arising from the presentation sessions. Each group will focus on a particular area of analysis of aspect-oriented software and will aim to identify key challenges. The workshop will conclude with a discussion of challenges identified by each group.

Post workshop the organizers will combine the results from the group discussions into a workshop report. This document will be posted on the workshop website, along with all of the accepted papers.

Workshop Reader

Springer-Verlag will publish the ECOOP 2003 WS Reader as an LNCS volume.

This book will include a report for AAOS 2003, written by its organizers in collaboration with the participants. The report will provide a summary of the workshop with the major issues discussed and the conclusions drawn from the discussions, and will also include open research directions related to the workshop theme. The papers presented at the workshop will not be included into the report.

An online version of the workshop report will be made available on the worshop web site shortly after the workshop.

Workshop Website

All accepted papers will be posted on the workshop website before the workshop to be available for workshop participants. The website includes a discussion forum allowing submitters to begin to discuss the issues arising in advance of the workshop. After the workshop, the website will be maintained for as long as possible in order to allow discussions to continue.

Organizing Committee

• Jan Hannemann, University of British Columbia, Canada
• Ruzanna Chitchyan, Lancaster University, UK
• Awais Rashid, Lancaster University, UK

Please contact the organizers via aaos2003@comp.lancs.ac.uk.

Program Committee:

• Mehmet Aksit, University of Twente, The Netherlands
• Adrian Colyer, IBM, UK
• Kris De Volder, University of British Columbia, Canada
• Shmuel Katz, The Technion, Israel
• Robert Stroud, University of Newcastle, UK
• Frank Tip, IBM, USA