An exploratory study of the suitability of UML-based aspect modeling techniques with respect to their integration into Model-Driven Engineering context

Context: The integration of aspect oriented modeling approaches with model‐driven engineering process achieved through their direct transformation to aspect‐oriented code is expected to enhance the software development from many perspectives. However, since no aspect modeling technique has been adopted as the standard while the code generation has to be fully dependent on the input model, it becomes imperative to compare all ubiquitous techniques on the basis of some appropriate criteria. Objective: This study aims to assess existing UML‐based aspect‐oriented modeling techniques from the perspective of their suitability with regards to integration into model‐driven engineering process through aspect‐oriented code generation. Method: We defined an evaluation framework and employed it to evaluate 14 well‐published, UML‐based aspect‐oriented modeling approaches. Further, based on the comparison results, we selected 2 modeling approaches, Reusable Aspect Models and Theme/UML, and proceeded to evaluate them in a detailed way from specific perspectives of design and its mapping to the implementation code. Results: Results of the comparison of 14 approaches show that majority of aspect modeling approaches lack from different perspectives, which results in reducing their use in practice within the context of model‐driven engineering. The in‐depth comparison of Reusable Aspect Models and Theme/UML reveals some points equally shared by both approaches, and identifies some areas where the former has advantage over the latter. Conclusion: Majority of aspect‐oriented modeling approaches works well to handle the basic modeling tasks. However, in the context of their integration into model‐driven engineering process, these approaches need to be improved from many perspectives. As regards the second part of our comparison, the Reusable Aspect Models approach may be seen as a preferred approach to handle the task of integration using aspect‐oriented code generation.