Aspect-Oriented Software Development with Use Cases

Description:

“A refreshingly new approach toward improving use-case modeling by fortifying it with aspect orientation.”

—Ramnivas Laddad, author of AspectJ in Action

“Since the 1980s, use cases have been a way to bring users into software design, but translating use cases into software has been an art, at best, because user goods often don’t respect code boundaries. Now that aspect-oriented programming (AOP) can express crosscutting concerns directly in code, the man who developed use cases has proposed step-by-step methods for recognizing crosscutting concerns in use cases and writing the code in separate modules. If these methods are at all fruitful in your design and development practice, they will make a big difference in software quality for developers and users alike.

—Wes Isberg, AspectJ team member

“This book not only provides ideas and examples of what aspect-oriented software development is but how it can be utilized in a real development project.”

—MichaelWard, ThoughtWorks, Inc.

“No system has ever been designed from scratch perfectly; every system is composed of features layered in top of features that accumulate over time. Conventional design techniques do not handle this well, and over time the integrity of most systems degrades as a result. For the first time, here is a set of techniques that facilitates composition of behavior that not only allows systems to be defined in terms of layered functionality but composition is at the very heart of the approach. This book is an important advance in modern methodology and is certain to influence the direction of software engineering in the next decade, just as Object-Oriented Software Engineering influenced the last.”

—Kurt Bittner, IBM Corporation

“Use cases are an excellent means to capture system requirements and drive a user-centric view of system development and testing. This book offers a comprehensive guide on explicit use-case-driven development from early requirements modeling to design and implementation. It provides a simple yet rich set of guidelines to realize use-case models using aspect-oriented design and programming. It is a valuable resource to researchers and practitioners alike.”

—Dr. Awais Rashid, Lancaster University, U.K., and author of Aspect-Oriented Database Systems

“AOSD is important technology that will help developers produce better systems. Unfortunately, it has not been obvious how to integrate AOSD across a project’s lifecycle. This book shatters that barrier, providing concrete examples on how to use AOSD from requirements analysis through testing.”

—Charles B. Haley, research fellow, The Open University, U.K.

Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a revolutionary new way to think about software engineering. AOP was introduced to address crosscutting concerns such as security, logging, persistence, debugging, tracing, distribution, performance monitoring, and exception handling in a more effective manner. Unlike conventional development techniques, which scatter the implementation of each concern into multiple classes, aspect-oriented programming localizes them.

Aspect-oriented software development (AOSD) uses this approach to create a better modularity for functional and nonfunctional requirements, platform specifics, and more, allowing you to build more understandable systems that are easier to configure and extend to meet the evolving needs of stakeholders.

In this highly anticipated new book, Ivar Jacobson and Pan-Wei Ng demonstrate how to apply use cases—a mature and systematic approach to focusing on stakeholder concerns—and aspect-orientation in building robust and extensible systems. Throughout the book, the authors employ a single, real-world example of a hotel management information system to make the described theories and practices concrete and understandable.

The authors show how to identify, design, implement, test, and refactor use-case modules, as well as extend them. They also demonstrate how to design use-case modules with the Unified Modeling Language (UML)—emphasizing enhancements made in UML 2.0—and how to achieve use-case modularity using aspect technologies, notably AspectJ.

Key topics include

• Making the case for use cases and aspects
• Capturing and modeling concerns with use cases
• Keeping concerns separate with use-case modules
• Modeling use-cases slices and aspects using the newest extensions to the UML notation
• Applying use cases and aspects in projects

Whatever your level of experience with aspect-oriented programming, Aspect-Oriented Software Development with Use Cases will teach you how to develop better software by embracing the paradigm shift to AOSD.

 

Preface.

Acknowledgments.

I. THE CASE FOR USE CASES AND ASPECTS.

1. Problem to Attack.

    The Use of Components Today.

    Limitation of Components.

    Approaching a Solution.

    Keeping Concerns Separate.

2. Attacking the Problem with Aspects.

    Approaching a Solution with Aspects.

    Keeping Peers Separate with Aspects.

    Keeping Extensions Separate with Aspects.

    Need for Methodological Guidance.

3. Today with Use Cases.

    Use Cases in Brief.

    Use-Case-Driven Development.

    Roles and Benefits of Use Cases.

    Gaps in the Use-Case Technique.

    Bridging the Gaps with Aspects.

4. Tomorrow with Use-Case Modules.

    Building Systems in Overlays with Use-Case Slices.

    Keeping Peer Use Cases Separate.

    Keeping Extension Use Cases Separate.

    Developing with Use-Case Modules.

II. MODELING AND CAPTURING CONCERNS WITH USE CASES.

5. Modeling Concerns with Use Cases.

    Use-Case Modeling.

    Use-Case Instances and Flows of Events.

    Describing Use Cases.

    Visualizing Use-Case Flows.

    Summary and Highlights.

6. Structuring Use Cases.

    Use-Case Relationships.

    Use-Case Extend Relationship.

    Use-Case Include Relationship.

    Use-Case Generalization.

    Utility Use Cases.

    Summary and Highlights.

7. Capturing Concerns with Use Cases.

    Understanding Stakeholder Concerns.

    Capturing Application Use Cases.

    Capturing Infrastructure Use Cases.

    Summary and Highlights.

III. KEEPING CONCERNS SEPARATE WITH USE-CASE MODULES.

8. Keeping Peer Use-Case Realizations Separate with Aspects.

    Realizing Peer Use Cases.

    Keeping Use-Case Specifics Separate.

    Dealing with Overlap.

    Summary and Highlights.

9. Keeping Extensions Separate with Pointcuts.

    Realizing Extension Use Cases.

    Keeping Modularity of Extension Use-Case Realizations.

    Parameterizing Pointcuts.

    Generalizing Extension Use-Case Realizations.

    Templating Use-Case Slices.

    Summary and Highlights.

10. Building Systems with Use-Case Modules.

    A System Comprises Models.

    Use-Case Model.

    Analysis Model.

    Design and Implementation Models.

    Use-Case Modules Cut Across Models.

    Composing and Configuring Use-Case Modules.

    Summary and Highlights.

IV. ESTABLISHING AN ARCHITECTURE BASED ON USE CASES AND ASPECTS.

11. Road to a Resilient Architecture.

    What Is Architecture?

    What Is a Good Architecture?

    Steps to Establish an Architecture Baseline.

    Begin with a Platform-Independent Structure.

    Overlay Platform Specifics on Top.

    Summary and Highlights.

12. Separating Functional Requirements with Application Peer Use Cases.

    Analyzing Application Use Cases.

    Keeping Application Use Cases Separate.

    Designing Application Use Cases.

    Refining Design Elements.

    Summary and Highlights.

13. Separating Functional Requirements with Application-Extension Use Cases.

    Analyzing Application-Extension Use Cases.

    Keeping Application-Extension Use Cases Separate.

    Designing Application-Extension Use Cases.

    Dealing with Changes in the Base.

    Summary and Highlights.

14. Separating Nonfunctional Requirements with Infrastructure Use Cases.

    Analyzing an Infrastructure Use Case.

    Keeping Infrastructure Use Cases Separate.

    Designing Infrastructure Use Cases.

    Dealing with Multiple Infrastructure Use Cases.

    Summary and Highlights.

15. Separating Platform Specifics with Platform-Specific Use-Case Slices.

    Keeping Platform Specifics Separate.

    Overlaying User Interfaces.

    Overlaying Distribution.

    Overlaying Persistency.

    Preserving the Use-Case Structure.

    Summary and Highlights.

16. Separating Tests with Use-Case Test Slices.

    Test-First Approach.

    Identifying Test Cases from Use Cases.

    Identifying Elements to Be Tested.

    Designing and Implementing Tests.

    Summary and Highlights.

17. Evaluating the Architecture.

    Putting It Together.

    Evaluating Separation of Concerns.

    Evaluating and Achieving Systemwide Concerns.

    Summary and Highlights.

18. Describing the Architecture.

    Architecture Description Comprises Architectural Views.

    Architectural View of the Use-Case Model.

    Architectural View of the Analysis Model.

    Architectural View of the Design Model.

    Summary and Highlights.

V. APPLYING USE CASES AND ASPECTS IN A PROJECT.

19. Running a Project.

    Iterative Development.

    Estimating Development Effort.

    Planning and Controlling the Project.

    Productivity Gains by Keeping Concerns Separate.

    Summary and Highlights.

20. Tailoring the Approach.

    Achieving the Right Balance.

    Selecting Disciplines to Apply.

    Adopting at Different Phases of a Project.

    Summary and Highlights.

21. Aspects and Beyond.

    Building a System in Extensions.

    Balancing Best Practices.

    The Road Ahead.

Appendix A. Modeling Aspects and Use-Case Slices in UML.

Appendix B. Notation Guide.

References.

Glossary.

Index.