Introducing Composite Layers in EventCJ

Context-oriented programming (COP) languages provide a modularization mechanism called a layer, which modularizes behaviors that are executable under specific contexts, and specify a way to dynamically switch behaviors. However, the correspondence between real-world contexts and units of behavioral variations is not simple. Thus, in existing COP languages, context-related concerns can easily be tangled within a piece of layer activation code. In this paper, we address this problem by introducing a new construct called a composite layer, which declares a proposition in which ground terms are given other layer names (true when active). A composite layer is active only when the proposition is true. We introduce this construct into EventCJ, out COP language, and verify this approach by conducting two case studies involving a context-aware Twitter client and a program editor. The results obtained in our approach show that the layer activation code is simple and free from tangled context-related concerns. We also discuss the efficient implementation of this mechanism in EventCJ.