In a keynote address titled "Aspects - from Promise to Reality" by Dr. Daniel Sabbah (IBM Vice President, Development and SWG Technology, Application Integration & Middleware Division, Software Group), Sabbah described AOP as being "critical" - which will come as a shot in the arm for those who believe that aspect-oriented software development will change forever the way applications are developed, from enterprise to embedded applications.

Sabbah's remark at AOSD 2004 suggests that IBM has bought in to the notion that AOSD technologies provide a means to modularize crosscutting aspects of system development, thereby saving time and money.

"The concepts underpinning aspect oriented software development have been with us for many years," he said. "The last couple of years have been particularly exciting, with much of the promise brought into sharp reality."

"The timing for our industry couldn't be more critical," Sabbah continued. "Urgent help is needed to address the growing software complexity crisis. Deployment of uniform implementations of cross-cutting concerns into a range of software products is now feasible, and large and complex software can be factored and recomposed into simpler, better targeted, higher quality offerings."

IBM plans to put this technology into production, Sabbah explained. It will "simplify the delivery and service of high quality software, deliver new solutions for our customers' development requirements, create opportunities for customers to add value to their software, and to accelerate new initiatives at the heart of IBM's software strategy," he said.

The conference, devoted entirely to aspect-oriented technologies and practices, brings leading researchers and practitioners together each year to discuss the latest developments in the field. Being held this year at Lancaster University in the UK,  it finishes today.

• It's the Aspects

• Talk on AOP & Java Given at EDGE 2004
• Index of Information About AOP
• Aspect-Oriented Programming in Java