The next step in Java

Painting QR Code in Java The next step

shows the crosscutting view also helps identify multiple aspects affecting the same join points. Newness of implementation AspectJ is a new language and a new implementation. It is remarkably stable, yet you will encounter problems once in a while that may necessitate a certain workaround. This situation, however, will improve with time as more and more people start using AspectJ.

Once you are convinced of AspectJ s power, the next step is to introduce it to your project or organization. This step may take a while and it requires persistence:

Use it for individual productivity It is best to avoid trying to convince your team or management of the virtues of AspectJ while you are still new to it. During the time you are learning it, your main purpose should be to improve individual productivity and gain confidence in AspectJ s application. Simple policy-enforcement and logging aspects that improve your productivity in your own development world are great ways to start. Policy enforcement will help you avoid getting into trenches in the first place; logging will help you find your way out if you still manage to get in. Performance profiling and studying the impact of resource pooling may be the next simple applications. With resource pooling, you may use an aspect to find where you need to introduce it, and then you may implement it using a conventional solution. Convince management You must have the support and encouragement of management if you want your organization to fully embrace AOP and AspectJ. A good way to convince managers is to illustrate AspectJ s power in a before-and-after style by following these steps:

Demonstrate good code before implementing functionality. Show how simple the code looks before adding a concern. Demonstrate bad code after implementing functionality without using AspectJ. Show how many lines of code you need to write and how invasive the changes are. Also, present a bug-fixing scenario that will necessitate changes to many modules. Demonstrate good code after implementing functionality in AspectJ. Show the cleanliness of the core and new functionality, the reduction in the number of lines of code, and the simplicity of fixing bugs.

Figure 13.1 Here is a way to convince management and your team of the power of AOP and AspectJ. This figure shows that productivity can be improved during the development phase and that change management is easier after deployment when you use AspectJ.

Figure 13.1 illustrates the good-bad-good approach. The flow on the left side shows how a system changes when implementing a crosscutting concern using conventional techniques, whereas the right side shows how AOP achieves the same goal. Convince your team Most software products are developed in a team. Therefore, it helps if all the team members are at least aware of AspectJ and its value. Showing how policy-enforcement aspects catch errors even before testing can be an effective eye-opener. The good-bad-good transformation also helps convince the team members of AspectJ s power. Find a killer application You may come across a situation where your application needs to implement functionality, but it is postponed to a later release because it will require changing so many modules. Analyze the situation. If you find that you can use AspectJ to prevent such invasive changes and still add the needed functionality, you should try it out. The high visibility of the solution adds a wow factor and is a very effective way to bring in AspectJ for good. Get training Grab any training opportunities you can books, articles, seminars, formal classroom training, bringing in a mentor, and so forth. This book, of course, is meant to serve as one such training opportunity.