Crosscutting, what is and what is not?

This book proposes a conceptual framework that allows the formal definition of the terms of scattering, tangling and crosscutting. The conceptual framework is based on the concept of crosscutting pattern which denotes to the situation where two different domains, called source and target, are related by a traceability link or mapping. The terms of scattering, tangling and crosscutting are defined, thus, as special cases of this mapping. The utilization of this formal definition aims at identifying situations of crosscutting. Since the crosscutting pattern is not tied to any specific deployment artefact, it may be applied to any development phase, allowing the identification of crosscutting at any abstraction level (from requirements to implementation). Moreover, the crosscutting pattern can be applied across several refinement levels enabling traceability of crosscutting concerns. Usability of the framework is illustrated by means of applying it to several research areas such as aspect mining, software quality assessment, identification of crosscutting features in Software Product Lines (SPL) or maintainability analysis.