Aop@work: Next steps in use-after learning suggestions

Introduction: Once you've got involved, you'll be on the go, but traveling without a map is never a good idea. In this article, the honorable aspect of inventor Ron Bodkin provides you with four stages of successful adoption, from the first experiment using tracing and testing to building your own reusable aspect library.

So far, you must have heard of aspect-oriented programming. You know it's easy to log and measure, and it can be applied to more complex issues. You may have downloaded and written some simple aspects, or tried out products that use AOP to simplify development, such as the Spring framework. But what happens next? What else can I do for you?

If you're just starting to learn and wondering how to use AOP for the next step, this article is right for you. If you're excited about the big outlines of AOP, but aren't sure how to apply them to day-to-day development practices or how to convince decision-makers in your organization to adopt AOP, read on.

In this article, I provide a practical guide to the next step in the field. I described the different stages of adopting AOP and provided a guide to sample learning applications and successful completion of each phase. In this process, I provide a survey of AOP technologies and applications, which are discussed in more detail in many other articles in this series.

Adoption phase

In Figure 1, you can see the general steps to adopt AOP. I like to study the adoption phase based on the learning curve. When you are learning any skill, it is important to try an application that is appropriate to your experience. Like object-oriented programming, AOP requires time and effort to reshape the way in which problems are thought.

Inexperienced aspects the user has established a common anti-pattern in writing, that is, the aspect is essentially a patch, but there is no internal adhesion. Early object-oriented developers created similar patterns (such as deep inheritance hierarchies) when they tried to solve complex problems with objects. Let's avoid these traps! In Figure 1, you can see the phase of successful AOP adoption:

Figure 1. AOP Adoption Phase

During the adoption phase, the following key principles apply:

Incremental adoption: Learn to use things a little at a time. Start with the "development side" to avoid risking your production system. and use them effectively. Finally, this expands. At each stage, be sure to build and find new opportunities on the basis of what you have already done.

Reuse and then create: Configuring pre-built components is a good way to make efficient use of powerful features, just as it is a good way to effectively leverage the power of objects. As you gain experience, you will want to customize and eventually create your own reusable components.

Investing in surprises: Provide a cost-free example of how you can resolve difficult issues before asking your colleagues and superiors to commit to them.