We compare five industrial software architecture design methods and we extract from their commonalities a general software architecture design approach. Using this general approach, we compare across the five methods the artifacts and activities they use or recommend, and we pinpoint similarities and differences. Once we get beyond the great variance in terminology and description, we find that the five approaches have a lot in common and match more or less the ''ideal'' pattern we introduced. From the ideal pattern we derive an evaluation grid that can be used for further method comparisons.
Abstract:This paper describes our experience using UML, the Unified Modeling Language, to describe the software architecture of a system. We found that it works well for communicating the static structure of the architecture: the elements of the architecture, their relations, and the variability of a structure. These static properties are much more readily described with it than the dynamic properties. We could easily describe a particular sequence of activities, but not a general sequence. In addition, the ability to show peer-topeer communication is missing from UML.
C e n t r u m v o o r W i s k u n d e e n I n f o r m a t i c aSymphony: View-Driven Software Architecture Reconstruction ABSTRACT Authentic descriptions of a software architecture are required as a reliable foundation for any but trivial changes to a system. Far too often, architecture descriptions of existing systems are out of sync with the implementation. If they are, they must be reconstructed. There are many existing techniques for reconstructing individual architecture views, but no information about how to select views for reconstruction, or about process aspects of architecture reconstruction in general. In this paper we describe view-driven process for reconstructing software architecture that fills this gap. To describe Symphony, we present and compare different case studies, thus serving a secondary goal of sharing real-life reconstruction experience. The Symphony process incorporates the state of the practice, where reconstruction is problemdriven and uses a rich set of architecture views. Symphony provides a common framework for reporting reconstruction experiences and for comparing reconstruction approaches. Finally, it is a vehicle for exposing and demarcating research problems in software architecture reconstruction.
ACM Computing Classification
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