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Intermediate License: The Code Project Open License (CPOL)
Rating of Open Source AOP Frameworks in .NetBy V.GNANASEKARANThis article provides a methodology to rate the available open source AOP frameworks in .Net |
C# (C# 1.0, C# 2.0, C# 3.0, C#), Win Mobile, .NET CF, .NET (.NET, .NET 3.5, .NET 3.0, .NET 1.0, .NET 1.1, .NET 2.0), Visual Studio (VS2005, VS2008, Visual Studio), ASP.NET, Architect, Dev, Design Posted: 5 Aug 2008 Updated: 5 Aug 2008 Views: 5,794 Bookmarked: 15 times |
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Introduction
In the days where business agility is becoming the
definite need of any business / IT infrastructure, quite frequently we are
ending up with facing the scenarios, where we need to develop applications that
are flexible and easily manageable.
The flexibility in an application’s architecture is
demanded by the emerging business competitions, pressure to sustain the challenges created
by the innovative business models, need to sustain the growing customer’s base
of an established business etc. Say for example you are building an e-commerce
system with an innovative business model, targeting a niche market. Soon, it is
becoming hot in the market and your system is witnessing a rapidly growing user
base, in a short span of time. The system starts crawling, failing to sustain
the increased user load there by creating significant loss to your business and
to the good will you have created with your hard work and innovation.
Situations that may pull your business down may be
like:
- Changes
in the regulations / policies of the government because of which you may need
to incorporate some more rules in to your system, while keeping it running
- Need
to switch from your payment gateway to an other one who is offering services at
a discounted price , to increase the revenue
- Need
to shift from one packaging company to other (like say from FedEx to UPS) as
there is a need to increase of the speed of the delivery
- Demand
to shift from a particular financial outsourcing services provider to another
- Etc...
The architecture that could excel in such an agile
environment can be called “Pluggable Architecture”. There are proven
methodologies (Patterns) that can constitute the design to realize such
architectures. AOP is one of such available patterns / methodologies widely
adopted in the market.
Background
AOP – Aspect Oriented Programming is a methodology
that helps in keeping the “cross-cutting concerns” separate from the code
blocks that encapsulate business logic. “cross-cutting” here refers to the code
blocks that are non-business specific and that are repeated across different
classes spread across different layers. Examples of cross cutting concerns are:
Logging, Exception Handling code blocks specific to instrumentation of the code
etc. There may be many numbers of such concerns which need to be abstracted
from the business logic specific code. The basic thumb rule to identify a cross-cutting concern is: If a concern is repeated across classes spread over layers / tiers, then it is a cross-cutting concern.
AOP Benefits
The facility to separate the cross-cutting concerns
helps in:
- Selectively
applying the cross cutting concerns, as required. Say some logic related
to profiling the code for performance monitoring would required only at
the time of testing but not in the production environment so they can be
enabled/disabled based on the environment as required
- Applying any changes / fixing bugs in the
cross-cutting code logic, without affecting the business logic code in the
production environment.
- Evolution
of the different parts of the system in different paces.
- Arriving
at a final solution where the code is easy to understand and maintain
Need for a Rating Methodology
Having realizing the benefits of AOP, the next step
is to look for ways to implement it in our application development. In this case,
instead of starting from scratch, the best way is to leverage the research and
effort put by many of hardworking tech savvies around the world through the
availability of open source frameworks / utilities.
When we are in the stage of looking for adopting an
open source AOP framework, lots of open source AOP frameworks are available in
the market and hence, we need to choose the best possible one for our
development. Choosing the best possible one could be a difficult task as always
there will be conflicts of thoughts and difference of opinions, especially when
we are in a team. Especially when we are in a position to convince our
customers for the adoption of a particular framework, we cannot choose a
particular AOP framework, unless and otherwise we have some good
justifications.
Will it not be good, if we have rating methodology
where we can analyze and evaluate the available AOP frameworks qualitatively
and quantitatively enabling us to rate the AOP frameworks in the market so that
we can make an informed decision in a short span of time. Result of such a
thought process is the following “Frameworks Rating Methodology”.
Open Source AOP Frameworks Rating Methodology
As a part of this effort, I had identified some of
the attributes (which can be expanded / refined) and assigned points for each
of the AOP framework (which is subjective – It is based on my research and
information available to me. You can change it as per your observation and conviction)
The list of the open source AOP frameworks that are considered for this rating process are:
·
Aspect#
·
NAspect
·
Policy Injection
Application Block
·
Sesar
The Rating attributes identified and used for this
rating process are:
|
Quality of the Methodology adopted |
There
are different approaches available to achieve AOP in .Net. Each of the
available open source AOP frameworks adopted different approaches. Basically
AOP can be achieved either at compile time or at runtime. According to me ,
runtime will be always a overhead when compared to compile time, as it is a
one time process. Details
on the available approaches available at : http://www.ayende.com/Blog/archive/2007/07/02/7-Approaches-for-AOP-in-.Net.aspx When
I was investigating on the details of approach adopted by these open source
frameworks, information clarity is available only for some of the frameworks.
I had assigned points based on my thought process and perception. It may
differ from person to person based on the availability of the information and
depth of the research. |
|
Community support |
When
we choose a particular open source framework for our development projects,
unless and otherwise there is a wider community support, we cannot go with it,
as it may be a high risk during the course of deployment or in the later stage
of production support. |
|
Visibility of any Implementations / Industry-wide adoption |
Again,
as a part of finalizing architecture for a solution, our clients may be
looking for proven case studies / industry wide adoptions of the products
that we choose. Same thing is applicable here as well. Availability of proven
case studies will provide us some confidence on that framework especially
when we go for large scale, enterprise level solution development. In this
investigation process, I could rarely see any proven case studies for any of
these listed frameworks. |
|
Ease of adoption by developers |
This
is again subjective and can vary from person to person. |
|
Learning curve required |
This
is again subjective and can vary from person to person. |
|
Memory Footprint / overhead |
This
could be a key attribute on rating a particular framework. Only some of the
framework’s groups are explicit on memory foot print of their products. As
this could be a significant factor affecting the performance and resource
consumption especially on large scale deployments, I would suggest the
respective framework providers to publish benchmark case studies / lab
results, which would provide us good confidence on the framework. |
|
Available version in the
market (Is it a RC or still in alpha
stage)/ Documentation |
Some
of the frameworks on its early stages development. Periodical releases of the
subsequent versions of the frameworks are the indications of the aggressive
development and enthusiasm of the community behind those frameworks. Also,
availability of the documentation (API, Conceptual, and Architecture) is a
definite need for any framework to understand them clearly. |
I have assigned very low points if the information
is not clear or if it is not available or if it is vague.
|
Guidance
for Rating Attributes |
|
|
|
|
Here is the resulting rating
matrix:
|
Preliminary Rating
Matrix |
|||||||
|
Available
Open Source .Net AOP Frameworks / Utilities |
|||||||
|
|
NAspect – Puzzle.Net |
Aspect# |
Policy Injection Application Block |
PostSharp |
Seasar |
AspectDng |
Spring.Net |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Quality of the Methodology adopted |
2 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
Community support |
2 |
2 |
3 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
|
Visibility of any Implementations / Industry-wide adoption |
1 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
|
Ease of adoption by developers |
2 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
|
Learning curve required |
1 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
|
Memory Footprint / overhead |
1 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
|
Available version in the
market (Is it a RC or still in alpha
stage)/ Documentation |
2 |
2 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
11 |
8 |
15 |
20 |
8 |
6 |
14 |
Conclusion
Whenever we go for implementing a particular
methodology or concept like AOP, we will always leverage the existing open
source frameworks. Since there is a no. of open source frameworks available in
the market, it will be always good to have some concrete justifications as a
base for selecting a particular framework for adoption.
Adopting a rating process some thing like explained in this article will ensure that the frameworks are subjected to both qualitative & quantitative evaluation process, resulting in a meaningful decision.
From the matrix, the frameworks that emerged in the
‘top 3 ‘list of are:
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