Reusable Aspect Models versus Theme/UML: the Aspect-Oriented Code Generation Perspective

The integration of aspect oriented modeling approaches with model-driven engineering process achieved through their direct transformation to aspect-oriented code is expected to enhance the software development from many perspectives. This study aims to assess the existing UML-based aspect-oriented modeling techniques from the perspective of their suitability with regards to integration into model-driven engineering process through aspect-oriented code generation. For this purpose, we selected two mature aspectoriented modeling approaches, Reusable Aspect Models and Theme/UML, and proceeded to evaluate them in a detailed way from the specific perspectives of design and its mapping to the implementation code. The in-depth comparison reveals some points equally shared by both approaches, and identifies some areas where one has advantage over the other. The study concludes that the Reusable Aspect Models approach may be seen as a preferred approach to handling the task of integration using aspect-oriented code generation.