Roles and Aspects: Similarities, Differences, and Synergetic Potential

Both, the role concept and aspect-oriented programming are techniques which permit a flexible adaptation of object-oriented constructs and therefore can be used to adjust existing software to new challenges. While the former one is already well known in the object-oriented world, the latter was only recently introduced. Currently, both techniques co-exist without affecting each other and therefore concrete software projects either use the one or the other approach. There are some situations where the result of utilizing the one or the other is approximately the same. Therefore, it is reasonable to analyze each approach in respect to its underlying philosophy and its impact on the implementation level and to compare them on the basis of those observations. This paper discusses the equivalences and differences between the role concept and aspect-oriented programming and reveals potential synergies between both approaches.