An Aspect–Oriented Approach based on Multiparty Interactions to Specifying the Behaviour of a System

Abstract

Isolating computation and coordination concerns into separate pure computation and pure coordination enhances modularity, understandability and reusability of parallel and/or distributed software. This can be achieved by moving interaction primitives, which are now commonly scattered in programs, into separate modules written in a language aimed at coordinating objects and expressing how information flows among them. The usual model for coordination is the client/server model, but it is not adequate when several objects need to collaborate simultaneously in order to solve a problem because natural multiparty interactions need to be decomposed into a set of low–level, binary interactions. In this paper, we introduce CAL, an IP–based language for the description of the coordination aspect of a system. We show that it can be successfully described in terms of simple multiparty interactions that can be animated and are also amenable to formal reasoning.