Source-Code Instrumentation and Quantification of Events

Abstract

Aspect-Oriented Programming is making quantified programmatic assertions over programs that otherwise are not annotated to receive these assertions. Varieties of AOP systems are characterized by which quantified assertions they allow, what they permit in the actions of the assertions (including how the actions interact with the base code), and what mechanisms they use to achieve the overall effect. Here, we argue that all quantification is over dynamic events, and describe our preliminary work in developing a system that maps dynamic events to transformations over source code. We discuss possible applications of this system, particularly with respect to debugging concurrent systems.