DiSTiL: A Transformation Library for Data Structures
Yannis Smaragdakis and Don Batory, University of Texas at Austin

Programming Language Support for Digitized Images or, The Monsters in the Closet
Daniel E. Stevenson and Margaret M. Fleck, University of Iowa

Modeling Interactive 3D and Multimedia Animation with an Embedded Language
Conal Elliott, Microsoft Research

A Special-Purpose Language for Picture-Drawing
Samuel Kamin and David Hyatt, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

A basic goal of software design is to be able to separate different kinds of design concerns into their own parts of the design. A basic goal of programming language development is to allow programmers to write programs that "look like the design" to as great a degree as possible.

This talk explores the degree to which we have been successful at meeting these combined goals. How well have we managed to separate concerns in software design and implementation? The talk will show that current technology does a good job of separating different kinds of functionality (what this module does vs. what that module does), but has been less successful at separating concerns having to do with systemic properties such as synchronization, network usage, replication, and memory usage.

The talk proposes the new concept of "aspect," and shows that by adding it to existing concepts like component, module and object, we can achieve better separation of such systemic issues. The talk will also show how aspect-oriented programming languages can be used to support designs based on aspects.