Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) improves modularity by encapsulating crosscutting concerns into aspects. Some mechanisms to compose aspects allow invasiveness as a mean to integrate concerns. Invasiveness means that AOP languages have unrestricted access to program properties. Such kind of languages are interesting because they allow performing complex operations and better introduce functionalities. In this report we present a classification of invasive patterns in AOP. This classification characterizes the aspects invasive behavior and allows developers to abstract about the aspect incidence over the program they crosscut.
In general, aspect-oriented programs require a whole-program analysis to understand the semantics of a single method invocation. This property can make reasoning difficult, impeding maintenance efforts, contrary to a stated goal of aspect-oriented programming. We propose some simple modifications to AspectJ that permit modular reasoning. This eliminates the need for whole-program analysis and makes code easier to understand and maintain.