NAME
    Aspect-Oriented Perl - Aspect-oriented programming in pure Perl

DESCRIPTION
  Introduction to AOP
    Aspect-oriented Programming (AOP) is a programming methodology developed
    by Xerox PARC. The basic idea is that in complex class systems there are
    certain aspects or behaviors that cannot normally be expressed in a
    coherent, concise and precise way. One example of such aspects are
    design patterns, which combine various kinds of classes to produce a
    common type of behavior.

    Aspects in Perl provide:

    *   Dynamic enabling and disabling of aspects at run-time

    *   Modular aspects for prepackaged functionality

    See "Aspect::Intro" for an introduction to aspect-oriented programming.
    See "Aspect::Overview" for an overview of the modules and classes that
    comprise this distribution. See "Aspect::Ideas" for ideas on future
    developments. See "Aspect::Cookbook" for aspect-oriented recipes for
    common situations. See the individual modules' manpages for information
    on how to use and implement aspects.

LIMITATIONS
    *   Many types of join points and pointcuts remain unimplemented.

    *   Performance may suffer for aspects affecting a wide range of join
        points.

PREREQUISITES
    "Aspect" requires the following modules, which can be obtained from
    CPAN:

      Class::MethodMaker
      Hook::LexWrap
      IO::Scalar

    If you install "Aspect" from the CPAN shell, these modules will, if
    necessary, be installed automatically as well.

INSTALLATION
    It's all pure Perl, so just put the .pm files in their appropriate local
    Perl subdirectories.

    The easiest way to install this distribution is using the standard build
    process for Perl modules:

      perl Makefile.PL
      make
      make test
      make install

    Or you could use the CPAN shell, as described in the "CPAN" module
    documentation.

CHANGES AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
    This "README" refers to version 0.07. For details of changes, refer to
    the file "Changes".

    Future versions will provide new types of join points, pointcuts and
    modular aspects. Stability and performance is also an ongoing concern.
    See "Aspect::Ideas" for an overview of these ideas.

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.08
    *   The distribution has been adapted for use with perl5.8.0.
        "Hook::LexWrap" is now a core module, but there was a problem with
        context (wantarray) handling with Aspect::Memoize.

        Sorry about the perl 5.6.x users, but this is bleeding-edge stuff,
        so you're expected to use the very latest gear. Anyway, you can
        still get an earlier version (up to 0.07) from CPAN, which will work
        with perl 5.6.x.

    *   "Aspect::Memoize" is now intended for subroutines returning scalars
        only. That is, if the sub is called in list context, it will still
        only memoize, and return, a memoized scalar. Void context obviously
        doesn't matter when it comes to memoization; subroutines returning
        lists are something I have to think about.

    *   Tests now use "Test::More".

AVAILABILITY
    "Aspect" has been uploaded to the CPAN.

AUTHOR
    Marcel Grünauer <marcel@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT
    Copyright 2001-2002 Marcel Grünauer. All rights reserved.

    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the same terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO
    Aspect::Intro(3pm), Aspect::Cookbook(3pm), Aspect::Ideas(3pm),
    Aspect(3pm).