Using VCL as an Aspect-Oriented Approach to Requirements Modelling

Software systems are becoming larger and more complex. By tackling the modularisation of crosscutting concerns, aspect-orientation draws attention to modularity as a means to address the problems of scalability, complexity and evolution in software systems development. Aspect-oriented modelling (AOM) applies aspect-orientation to the construction of models. Most existing AOM approaches are designed without a formal semantics, and use multi-view partial descriptions of behaviour. This paper presents an AOM approach based on the Visual Contract Language (VCL): a visual language for abstract and precise modelling, designed with a formal semantics, and comprising a novel approach to visual behavioural modelling based on design by contract where behavioural descriptions are total. By applying VCL to a large case study of a car-crash crisis management system, the paper demonstrates how modularity of VCL's constructs, at different levels of granularity, help to tackle complexity. In particular, it shows how VCL's package construct and its associated composition mechanisms are key in supporting separation of concerns, coarse-grained problem decomposition and aspect-orientation. The case study's modelling solution has a clear and well-defined modular structure; the backbone of this structure is a collection of packages encapsulating local solutions to concerns.