Early Aspects: Current Challenges and Future Directions ; 10th International Workshop, Vancouver, Canada, March 13, 2007, Revised Selected Papers

Traditionally, aspect-oriented software development (AOSD) has focused on the implementation phase of the software lifecycle: aspects are identified and captured mainly in code. Therefore, most current AOSD approaches place the burden for aspect identification and management on the programmer working at low levels of abstraction. However, aspects are often present well before the implementation phase, such as in domain models, requirements and software architecture. Identification and capture of these early aspects ensure that aspects related to the problem domain (as opposed to merely the implementation) will be appropriately captured, reasoned about and available. This offers improved opportunities for early recognition and negotiation of trade-offs and allows forward and backward aspect traceability. This makes requirements, architecture, and implementation more seamless, and allows a more systematic application of aspects.