Composition of Aspectual Requirements: A Multi-criteria Process for Conflict Resolution.

Abstract

In Aspect Oriented Software Development, aspects are not only used at the programming level but also tend to arise at the requirements analysis and software architecture design. We previously proposed an approach named AspeCiS (An aspect-oriented Approach to Develop a Cooperative Information System) to develop a Cooperative Information System from existing Information Systems by using their artifacts such as existing requirements and design elements. This approach include an important step in which the aspectual requirements composition problem is considered to be one of the remaining challenges. So, when multiple aspectual requirements share the same join point, undesired behavior may emerge and a conflict resolution process must be triggered. This study presents a conflict resolution process among aspects during the requirements engineering level: A priority value is computed for each aspect and it allows identifying a dominant aspectual requirement on the basis of stakeholder priority. This process is more formal than those currently proposed, which requires a trade-off negotiation to resolve conflicts.