Description:
The familiar Object-Oriented Programming paradigm allows developers to encapsulate the behavior of a system into objects. But for common behaviors that span many objects - such as persistence, logging, and security - Aspect-Oriented Programming has stepped in to fill the gap. AOP's goal is to make software easier to code and understand by modularizing those common "aspects" of a system.

Developers are often forced to create modules that have mixed goals; a single function such as logging-in a user might actually be distributed among several modules in an application. This is the case with the Apache Web server, for example; 37 of its 43 modules contain code that handles user login. This practice leads to tangled code that is more prone to errors and is difficult to debug, refactor, document, and support. The goal of aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is to solve these types of development problems."    AspectJ is a tool to allow Java developers to write aspects into their regular source code. It was developed at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center under a research grant, and transferred to the Eclipse.org project last December. Version 1.1 was released in June, the same month the editors of JavaWorld named AspectJ the "Most Innovative Java Product or Technology" for 2002.

The JavaWorld editors believe: Aspect-oriented programming is the next big thing, and will begin to show up in some form or another in many projects.

In this presentation, we will explore how AspectJ can be used along with your Java application to add functionality in a way that doesn't disrupt the OO paradigm. Your objects will maintain their encapsulation of data and methods with 'friends' trying to infiltrate them.

Speaker:
Joseph D. Gradecki is a senior software developer working on enterprise-level securities processing systems. He has been using AspectJ since the beginning and has built numerous dynamic enterprise applications using Java, MySQL, servlets and other technologies. He is co-author, with Nicholas Lesiecki, of "Mastering AspectJ: Aspect-Oriented Programming in Java." He holds an MS in Computer Science and is currently working on his Ph.D., also in Computer Science.

Download presentation slides: 200309_Gradecki_AspectJ.zip (PowerPoint)

Resources:
Mastering AspectJ : Aspect-Oriented Programming in Java
Joseph D. Gradecki, Nicholas Lesiecki
ISBN: 0-471-43104-4
Paperback
456 pages
March 2003

Additional books written by Gradecki:
Mastering Apache Velocity
Mastering Resin
Mastering JXTA: Building Java Peer-to-Peer Applications
MySQL and Java Developer's Guide

Articles:

Description:
Every software system has an architecture - some are intentional while others are accidental; some are explicit yet others are obscure. In this talk, we go on an archeological dig of several interesting software and non-software systems to uncover some of the principles common to every architecture. We'll also consider the role of architecture in the process of development, examining the agile approach of growing an architecture versus BUFD (big up front design).

Speaker:
Grady Booch is known internationally for his innovative work on software architecture, modeling, and software engineering processes. He is one of the few leaders in the software industry to have his name used as part of the lexicon – "The Booch method" and "Booch clouds." In addition to being the author of 6 technology-based books, Mr. Booch co-developed the Unified Modeling Language and the software modeling tool, Rational Rose. He served as Chief Scientist of Rational Software Corporation from 1980 to 2003, when IBM purchased Rational. Mr. Booch was named as an IBM Fellow earlier this year. Mr. Booch received his BS in engineering from the United States Air Force Academy in 1977 and his MSEE from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1979.

Resources:
200309_Booch.zip (PowerPoint)
slashdot.org
Booch's books on Amazon
IBM
IBM Rational