Lambda the Ultimate

inactiveTopic MOP/AOP Talks (Kiczales)
started 6/8/2003; 7:11:05 AM - last post 6/9/2003; 10:30:29 AM
Manuel Simoni - MOP/AOP Talks (Kiczales)  blueArrow
6/8/2003; 7:11:05 AM (reads: 581, responses: 7)
Towards a new model of abstraction in the engineering of software
Talk on Open Implementations by Gregor Kiczales, 1994 - 60 mins, Windows Media Player only.

Aspect Oriented Programming has its roots in Open Implementations / Meta Object Protocols. A MOP lets clients override parts of an implementation to better suit their needs (e.g. memory allocation strategy for objects.) The talk proposes that instead of hiding implementation details, control over "mapping dilemmas" should given to application programmers.

To recover the overhead introduced by opening the innards of the system, Kiczales proposes partial evaluation and code memoization at runtime.

Kiczales' advise to framework/library implementors is "if you can't conquer, at least divide".

Listener: "Is there a restriction that says that meta code isn't allowed to change the behavior of interface code?" Kiczales: "It's really nice if you don't make that restriction, but that freaks people out." (laughter)

A related paper was previously mentioned, and there's also a newer talk on AOP. (Also: AOP discussion on LtU.)

Ehud Lamm - Re: MOP/AOP Talks (Kiczales)  blueArrow
6/8/2003; 8:58:21 AM (reads: 591, responses: 0)
Hey! This should be posted to the home page (use the editors menu near the top of the window).

Ehud Lamm - Re: MOP/AOP Talks (Kiczales)  blueArrow
6/8/2003; 9:00:16 AM (reads: 594, responses: 0)
Listener: "Is there a restriction that says that meta code isn't allowed to change the behavior of interface code?" Kiczales: "It's really nice if you don't make that restriction, but that freaks people out." (laughter)

Somewhat related: In my abstraction breaking paper (LNCS 2043) I propose using reflection as universal model for abstraction breaking.

Manuel Simoni - Re: MOP/AOP Talks (Kiczales)  blueArrow
6/8/2003; 12:56:08 PM (reads: 574, responses: 1)
You mean freaky abstraction breaking?

Ehud Lamm - Re: MOP/AOP Talks (Kiczales)  blueArrow
6/8/2003; 1:28:35 PM (reads: 598, responses: 0)
I am not sure I follow...

Manuel Simoni - Re: MOP/AOP Talks (Kiczales)  blueArrow
6/8/2003; 1:39:57 PM (reads: 572, responses: 1)
I haven't read your paper (as I don't have Link access) but I wonder whether it describes a kind of abstraction breaking that freaks people out?

Ehud Lamm - Re: MOP/AOP Talks (Kiczales)  blueArrow
6/8/2003; 2:05:51 PM (reads: 609, responses: 0)
The last two sentences from the paper may help answer your question: Strict abstraction boundaries are too limiting in practice. The good news is that one man's abstraction breaking is another's language feature.

Manuel Simoni - Re: MOP/AOP Talks (Kiczales)  blueArrow
6/9/2003; 10:30:29 AM (reads: 541, responses: 0)
Ah, yes they do answer it :)