On the Support and Application of Macro-Refactorings for Crosscutting Concerns

Crosscutting concerns hinder software stability and reuse and, hence, refactorings have been proposed to modularise them using aspect-oriented programming technology. However, refactoring of crosscutting concerns is challenging and time-consuming because it involves many inter-dependent micro-refactorings. It may also be a repetitive task as recent studies have pointed out that most crosscutting concerns share a limited number of recurring shape patterns. This paper presents a family of macro-refactorings for modularising crosscutting concerns which share similar forms and patterns.