Treffer: An execution layer for aspect-oriented programming languages

Language mechanisms deserve language implementation ef-fort. While this maxim has led to sophisticated support for language features specific to object-oriented, functional and logic programming languages, aspect-oriented program-ming languages are still mostly implemented using postpro-cessors. The Steamloom virtual machine, based on IBM’s Jikes RVM, provides support for aspect-oriented program-ming at virtual machine level. A bytecode framework called BAT was integrated with the Jikes RVM to replace its byte-code management logic. While preserving the functionality needed by the VM, BAT also allows for querying applica-tion code for join point shadows, avoiding redundancy in bytecode representation. Performance measurements show that an AOP-enabled virtual machine like Steamloom does not inflict unnecessary performance penalties on a running application; when it comes to executing AOP-related opera-tions, there even are significant performance gains compared to other approaches.