Vladimir Safonov: Aspect-oriented programming (AOP)

Dr. Vladimir Safonov from St. Petersburg University gives a guest lecture on Friday 3.9.2010 at 12:15-14:00, room B222.

Abstract
========
Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a prospective software development and modernization technology. It allows software developers to easily design, implement and add to the application a number of cross-cutting concerns – pieces of functionality whose implementation requires injecting (weaving) into the application code a tangled set of pieces of code. Typical examples of cross-cutting concerns are security, logging, error handling and other features related to trustworthy computing (TWC). Actually AOP and TWC seem to be generically related – the former is an adequate tool to implement the latter. In AOP, each cross-cutting concern is implemented by an aspect, a special kind of module applied to the target application by weaving – injecting into the target application code, according to weaving rules provided in aspect specification. The most widely known is AspectJ, an implementation of Java extension by AOP constructs and features. The lecture covers a new approach to AOP implemented in Aspect.NET (http://www.aspectdotnet.org) – our AOP toolkit for .NET platform that enables developing and weaving aspects written in C# or Visual Basic using the same, very simple aspect specification meta-language Aspect.NET.ML. The lecture analyzes history, use and perspectives of AOP, current AOP tools, and covers Aspect.NET principles and implementation. Using AOP for developing trustworthy software is demonstrated by the use of Aspect.NET with simple self-explanatory examples.

Vladimir Safonov’s biography
============================
Vladimir O. Safonov (http://www.vladimirsafonov.org) is a professor of computer science at the Chair of Informatics, and Head of Java Technology at St. Petersburg University, Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics. His research and teaching areas of expertise are aspect-oriented programming, programming languages and compiler development, trustworthy computing, knowledge management, Java and .NET platforms, and parallel programming. He is the author of “Using aspect-oriented programming for trustworthy software development”, Wiley, 2008, and “Trustworthy Compilers”, Wiley, 2010, and over 120 papers including 10 books and 4 USA and Russian software patents.

The most important of Dr. Safonov's projects are:
- Aspect.NET (http://www.aspectdotnet.org)
- Knowledge.NET (http://www.knowledge-net.ru)
- Parallel Dwarfs (http://paralleldwarfs.codeplex.com).

Vladimir Safonov’s biography is included into 6 worldwide directories, including Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in Science and Engineering. He is a laureate of Government of St. Petersburg and University of St. Petersburg awards, Honored University Teacher of Russia, International Educator of the Year 2009 and International Scientist of the Year 2008 (by IBS, Cambridge, UK).