A Comparison of Program Generation with Aspect-Oriented Programming

Program generation and transformation techniques have gained considerable attention in the context of domain-specific languages (DSLs) and model-driven architecture (MDA). In this paper we compare domain-specific program generators with general-purpose aspect-oriented languages. We argue that program generation techniques have severe disadvantages with respect to composability, scalability, understandability, and other important software engineering issues. Finally, we advocate general-purpose aspect-oriented languages as an alternative for the implementation of domain-specific languages