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Presentation

Beyond AOP: Toward Naturalistic Programming Systems

Presenter: Prof. Cristina Videira Lopes

Abstract: Software understanding (for documentation, maintenance or evolution) is one of the longest-standing problems in Computer Science. The use of "high-level" programming paradigms and object-oriented languages helps, but fundamentally remains far from solving the problem. Most programming languages and systems have fallen prey to the assumption that they are supposed to capture idealized models of computation inspired by deceptively simple metaphors such as objects and mathematical functions. Aspect-oriented programming languages have made a significant break through by noticing that, in many situations, humans think and describe in crosscutting terms. We suggest that the next break through would require looking even closer to the way humans have been thinking and describing complex systems for thousand of years using natural languages. While natural languages themselves are not appropriate for programming, they contain a number of elements that make descriptions concise, effective and understandable. In particular, natural languages referentiality is a key factor in supporting powerful program organizations that can be easier understood by humans.

Bio: Cristina Videira Lopes is an Assistant Professor of Information and Computer Science (ICS) at the University of California, Irvine. Prior to joining the Faculty in ICS, she was member of the Research Staff at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). She was a founder of the group that developed Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) and AspectJ, and, for that reason, she is known as “the mother” of AOP. Her Ph.D. thesis, focusing in programming language support for distributed systems, was the first AOP-related thesis, and she co-wrote the seminal AOP paper published at ECOOP '97. For a number of years, she acted as one of the main evangelists for AOP technology, giving invited talks and organizing workshops in academic and industry conferences. More recently, she has also been working in Ubiquitous Computing with a focus in communication mechanisms that are pervasive, secure and intuitive for humans to perceive and interact with. Though with diverse interests, her research is always related to languages and communication systems. Lopes holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Instituto Superior Tecnico, in Lisbon, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Northeastern University, in Boston. She is a member of ACM and IEEE.