What are the advantages and Disadvantages of Using an Aspect Orientated Programming Paradigm [closed]

Question

Ok so here is the question: What are the advantages and Disadvantages of Using an Aspect Orientated Programming Paradigm.

My advantages and disadvantages thus far:

Advantages:

• Complements object orientation.
• Modularizes cross-cutting concerns improving code maintainability and understandability.

Disadvantage:

• Not the easiest of concepts to grasp - not as well documented as O-O
• O-O goes far enough in the separation of concerns...

Would anyone like to challenge any of these/ add their own?

Many Thanks, J

Answer 1

From the point of view of a programmer who's motto is "Keep It Simple Stupid", evaluating the usage of such models is dangerous. For what it attempts to accomplish, it renders a program far more difficult to comprehend and consequently easier to break.

The genius of good programming is in its simplicity ironically. Complex programs might work, but are nightmares when it comes to maintenance, and when you consider that 2/3rds of time spent by a programmer is placed in fixing errors in programs, it doesn't pay off in the end.

Answer 2

Distributing functionality out from the locus of operation increases complexity and action-at-a-distance issues.

I consider such design approaches to be something one should evolve into because the system demands it for clean operation, not designed in at the start.

Answer 3

Additional Advantages (not all of them)

• Reuse of classes and aspects, thanks to modularity
• Reduced cost of coding thanks to modularity and reuse
• Shorter code thanks to the ability to have an aspect with the code that would otherwise be implemented (scattered) into several classes
• Ability to add behavior to a class without introducing in it code unrelated with its main responsibility
• Ability to redefine the semantic of methods/classes without letting client classes know about it

Disadvantages

• Runtime overhead when using some constructs, e.g. cflow

Answer 4

Disadvantage: Poor tool-chain support:- debugger and profiler may not know about the "Aspect Oriented Programming" because of this reason they may work on code as if all the aspects had been replaced by procedural code.