Difference between Refactoring and Aspect Oriented Programming

Question

I have a difficulty in understanding the different between Refactoring and Aspect Oriented Programming.

I understand that Aspect Oriented Programming aims to increase modularity by separating cross cutting concerns, which also includes Code Duplication, tangling, etc.

But refactoring is also a process of restructuring code without changing its behavior and it also includes code duplication, etc.

Do I understand it wrong or is anybody can explain to me in an easy way how to understand those two? Thank you..

Answer 1

AOP and Refactoring are two different things. Refactoring has the goal to improve the internal qualities of the code without breaking the features/functionality visible to the user. AOP at the other side is a programming language paradigm introducing new language constructs like aspects and pointcuts for modularizing cross-cutting concerns. It can be used for refactoring the code to improve the modularity, but refactoring isn't its main goal.