Posted by Dean Wampler
Sat, 26 Apr 2008 21:13:04 GMT
An Aquarium user asked recently if you can use after_raising advice to raise a different exception, e.g., to wrap the original exception. Now you can, with the commits I did today. (This change will appear in the forthcoming V0.4.2 release.) Actually, this feature was partially implemented already, but never finished (OOPS!)
The following made-up example illustrates what you can do. Imagine you are one of the handful of Ruby programmers who aren’t using ActiveRecord ;) and you have an OracleDriver class that handles Oracle database transactions.
class OracleDriver
class OracleDriverException < StandardException; ...; end
class ConnectionError < OracleDriverException; ...; end
def connect
if try_to_connect == false
raise ConnectionError
end
...
end
def find query_parameters
...
end
end
In the application code that uses the OracleDriver you ignore any exceptions raised (because we will implement an exception handling strategy elsewhere…).
...
def load_object oracle_driver, query_parameters
oracle_driver.connect
oracle_driver.find query_parameters
end
...
Finally, you implement an application-wide exception handling strategy for any exceptions raised by the driver.
Aspect.new :after_raising => OracleDriverException,
:in_types => ... do |jp, object, *args|
# Ruby needs a standard way to wrap one exception in another.
original = jp.context.raised_exception
app_exception = ApplicationException.new(original.message)
app_exception.set_backtrace(original.backtrace)
jp.context.raised_exception = app_exception
end
In other words, any exceptions raised by calls to OracleDriver are wrapped in an ApplicationException, which will be thrown by Aquarium when the advice block finishes.
This technique can also be used when handling exceptions in after advice.
By the way, in a similar way, you can also change the return value in after and after_returning advice. In this case, you assign a new value to jp.context.returned_value.
Posted in AOP, Aquarium | no comments
Posted by Dean Wampler
Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:12:25 GMT
The new V0.4.0 release of Aquarium adds support for JRuby. Not only do the regular “pure Ruby” Aquarium specs run reliably under JRuby (V1.1RC2), but you can now write aspects for Java types with Aquarium!
There are some limitations and issues. For details, see my blog at Object Mentor and the JRuby page at the Aquarium website.
Posted in AOP, Java and AspectJ, Aquarium | 1 comment
Posted by Dean Wampler
Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:38:00 GMT
I released V0.3.0 of Aquarium today. The most visible change is a new set of synonyms for many of the parameters passed to API methods, providing a more “English-like” feel. For example, previously, you might declare an aspect like this:
around :methods => :all, :types => [Foo, Bar], :advice => advice_proc
Now you can write the same aspect as follows:
around :calls_to => :all_methods, :within_types => [Foo, Bar], :use_advice => advice_proc
which reads more like English.
Similarly, attribute matching is simpler.
after :attribute => name, :attribute_options => [:readers], :objects => [foo, bar] ...
becomes
after :reading => name, :on_objects => [foo, bar] ...
There are many internal improvements to improve DRY’ness, robustness, and performance.
There should be no upgrade issues, so give it a try!
Posted in AOP, Aquarium | no comments
Posted by Dean Wampler
Sat, 08 Dec 2007 18:02:14 GMT
I’m reprising my CJUG West talk on Aspect-Oriented Programming and Software Design in Java and AspectJ for the downtown Chicago group on December 18th.
I will briefly describe the problems that AOP addresses and how the principles of object-oriented design influence AOP and vice versa. If you’re in the area, I hope to see you there.
Posted in AOP, Java and AspectJ | no comments
Posted by Dean Wampler
Sun, 21 Oct 2007 01:50:00 GMT
Yesterday evening, I gave a talk on AOP at DePaul University called Aspect-Oriented Programming in Academia and Industry. Here’s the PDF.
This talk was a little different than the usual talks I give. Since this audience was mostly students and faculty, I wanted to show how groups in both industry and academia were looking at similar problems that led to the emergence of AOP, how they each contributed to AOP in different ways, and how they can continue complementing each other’s work on emerging trends, like Language-Oriented Programming.
Language-Oriented Programming is not a new idea, but it is getting renewed attention recently. I see it as a way of formalizing our understanding of how Domain-Specific Languages should be designed.
I’m a little concerned that everyone will get so excited about crafting “elegant” DSLs that we’ll end up with a Tower of Babel situation; lots of gratuitously-different ways of describing the same thing and no one getting much work done.
Anyway, we’ll see…
Posted in AOP | no comments
Posted by Dean Wampler
Tue, 02 Oct 2007 19:06:00 GMT
I’ve posted a PDF for the presentation I did last night on Aquarium at the Chicago Ruby Users Group (Chirb).
I also posted a zip file with three exercises that are adapted from the examples on the aquarium web site.
Posted in AOP, Ruby and Ruby on Rails, Aquarium | no comments
Posted by Dean Wampler
Tue, 18 Sep 2007 02:15:00 GMT
This is primarily a bug-fix release. I labeled it “v0.1.5” instead of “v0.1.1”, because a non-trivial API change was required; Aquarium no longer automatically adds methods to Object, due to collisions with Rails. This means that users of the “DSL methods” will need to require a new file or include a new module.
See the “CHANGES” file in the distribution of here for more information.
Posted in AOP, Ruby and Ruby on Rails, Aquarium | 4 comments
Posted by Dean Wampler
Tue, 04 Sep 2007 22:55:00 GMT
I’m giving a talk at the Chicago Java User’s Group West meeting this Thursday at 6:30 PM. The topic is Aspect-Oriented Programming and Software Design in Java and AspectJ. I’ll briefly describe the problems that AOP addresses and how the principles of object-oriented design influence AOP and vice versa. If you’re in the area, I hope to see you there.
Posted in AOP, Java and AspectJ | no comments
Posted by Dean Wampler
Tue, 04 Sep 2007 15:51:00 GMT
I’m doing a tutorial on aspect-oriented design principles with examples in Java and AspectJ at OOPSLA this year. You can find a description here
Posted in AOP, Java and AspectJ | Tags AOD, AOP, OOPSLA | no comments
Posted by Dean Wampler
Thu, 23 Aug 2007 22:18:00 GMT
I am pleased to announce the first release of Aquarium, an Aspect-Oriented Programming toolkit for Ruby.
I created Aquarium to address a few goals that aren’t adequately addressed by other AOP toolkits for Ruby. Most of these goals reflect the issues you encounter when using sophisticated aspects in large systems.
First, the most important feature of any AOP toolkit is the “pointcut” language it provides, which is how you succinctly specify the “join points” across a system where behavior changes are required to support the “cross-cutting concern” that the aspect implements.
Most people assume that Ruby doesn’t need an AOP framework because its built-in metaprogramming facilities make method interception and wrapping easy. This is the “advising” part of an AOP toolkit. However, the real value of AOP is the modularity capabilities provided by the pointcut language. One goal for Aquarium is to match and even exceed the power of the AspectJ pointcut language. I also hope to make it as user-friendly as possible.
Next, Aquarium seeks to handle the issues that arise when multiple advices are applied to a single join point, including precedence control.
Another goal is the ability to add and remove advice dynamically. For example, you might want to insert troubleshooting advice in a running system, then remove it later when the issue is resolved. The first release already implements this feature, with some limitations.
Finally (for now), I want to use Aquarium as a vehicle for experimenting with DSL implementation ideas. For several years, there has been discussion (started by Ivar Jacobson) of the idea that aspects share an affinity with Use Cases (or User Stories), because both concepts cross-cut the application domain object boundaries, in one sense or another. So, if I define a DSL that directly represents a user story, can I map it quickly and efficiently to the implementation objects using aspects? We’ll see.
There is extensive documentation at the Aquarium site. Please give it a try and let me know what you think!
Posted in AOP, Ruby and Ruby on Rails, Aquarium | 3 comments
