Encapsulating targeted component abstractions using software Reflexion Modelling

Buckley, Jim; LeGear, Andrew P.; Exton, Chris; Cadogan, Ross; Johnston, Trevor; Looby, Bill; Koschke, Rainer

doi:10.1002/smr.364

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 37 publications

(45 reference statements)

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“…With respect to O7: real-time feedback when (easily) manipulating the model and mappings, Buckley et al performed two in-vivo case studies with a RM approach on a commercial Learning Management System (LMS) in IBM (Buckley et al 2008). The second of these case studies implied the need for such a facility.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of the core advantages of RM proposed in the literature was the architects precommitment to an expected architectural model [13][14]: When the system was parsed and shown to differ from that architectural expectation the architect's subsequent surprise created an element of "cognitive conflict" between expectation and reality, driving further investigation [14].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, Buckley et al [14] reported that when the as-implemented architecture of the system under study was shown to the system architect, he noted that the as-implemented architecture was inconsistent with how he viewed the system, but that it was correct and valid, in that it did not compromise any of the system's architectural goals. Given the extent to which the asimplemented architecture was embedded in the system, he adopted a 'NoDen' type behaviour and stated that he was going to change his own (internal) architectural model of the system.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is anticipated that the architect would then update the system to more fully align it with the as-intended architecture. Such an approach allows the architect drive the process from their architectural perspective, and focuses them on the parts of the system where specific architectural violations arise in the implemented system with respect to this perspective [13][14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Real-Time Reflexion Modelling in architecture reconciliation: A multi case study

Buckley

Alí

English

et al. 2015

Information and Software Technology

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ContextReflexion Modelling is considered one of the more successful approaches to architecture reconciliation. Empirical studies strongly suggest that professional developers involved in real-life industrial projects find the information provided by variants of this approach useful and insightful, but the degree to which it resolves architecture conformance issues is still unclear. ObjectiveThis paper aims to assess the level of architecture conformance achieved by professional architects using Reflexion Modelling, and to determine how the approach could be extended to improve its suitability for this task. MethodAn in-vivo, multi-case-study protocol was adopted across five software systems, from four different financial services organizations. Think-aloud, video-tape and interview data from professional architects involved in Reflexion Modelling sessions were analysed qualitatively. ResultsThis study showed that (at least) four months after the Reflexion Modelling sessions less than 50% of the architectural violations identified were removed. The majority of participants who did remove violations favoured changes to the architectural model rather than to the code. Participants seemed to work off two specific architectural templates, and interactively explored their architectural model to focus in on the causes of violations, and to assess the ramifications of potential code changes. They expressed a desire for dependency analysis beyond static-source-code analysis and scalable visualizations. ConclusionThe findings support several interesting usage-in-practice traits, previously hinted at in the literature. These include 1) the iterative analysis of systems through Reflexion models, as a precursor to possible code change or as a focusing mechanism to identify the location of architecture conformance issues, 2) the extension of the approach with respect to dependency analysis of software systems and architectural modelling templates, 3) improved visualization support and 4) the insight that identification of architectural violations in itself does not lead to their removal in the majority of instances.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Real-Time Reflexion Modelling in architecture reconciliation: A multi case study

Buckley

Alí

English

et al. 2015

Information and Software Technology

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“…One of the authors was a past chair of the Irish Software Association meaning that he had a large number of contacts in the industry. In addition, two of the authors had connections with a number of companies, based on a previous history of architectural recovery\consistency studies (Ali et al 2012;Buckley et al 2015;Buckley et al 2008;Le Gear et al 2005). This initial pool of potential contacts was filtered down in line with several criteria.…”

Section: Participants and Their Organizational Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Architecture consistency: State of the practice, challenges and requirements

Alí

Baker

O’Crowley³

et al. 2017

Empir Software Eng

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Architecture Consistency (AC) aims to align implemented systems with their intended architectures. Several AC approaches and tools have been proposed and empirically evaluated, suggesting favourable results. In this paper, we empirically examine the state of practice with respect to Architecture Consistency, through interviews with nineteen experienced software engineers. Our goal is to identify 1) any practises that the companies these architects work for, currently undertake to achieve AC; 2) any barriers to undertaking explicit AC approaches in these companies; 3) software development situations where practitioners perceive AC approaches would be useful, and 4) AC tool needs, as perceived by practitioners. We also assess current commercial AC tool offerings in terms of these perceived needs. The study reveals that many practitioners apply informal AC approaches as there are barriers for adopting more formal and Empir Software Eng (2018) 23:224-258 DOI 10.1007 The original version of this article was revised due to a retrospective Open Access order. Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden explicit approaches. These barriers are: 1) Difficulty in quantifying architectural inconsistency effects, and thus justifying the allocation of resources to fix them to senior management, 2) The near invisibility of architectural inconsistency to customers, 3) Practitioners' reluctance towards fixing architectural inconsistencies, and 4) Practitioners perception that huge effort is required to map the system to the architecture when using more formal AC approaches and tools. Practitioners still believe that AC would be useful in supporting several of the software development activities such as auditing, evolution and ensuring quality attributes. After reviewing several commercial tools, we posit that AC tool vendors need to work on their ability to support analysis of systems made up of different technologies, that AC tools need to enhance their capabilities with respect to artefacts such as services and meta-data, and to focus more on non-maintainability architectural concerns.

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Incremental reflexion analysis

Koschke

2011

J Software Evolu Process

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SUMMARY Architecture conformance checking is implemented in many commercial and research tools. These tools typically implement the reflexion analysis originally proposed by Murphy, Notkin, and Sullivan. This analysis allows for structural validation of an architecture model against a source model connected by a mapping from source entities onto architecture entities. Given this mapping, the reflexion analysis computes the discrepancies between the architecture model and source model automatically. The mapping process is usually highly interactive and the most time‐consuming activity in the reflexion analysis. In current tools, the reflexion analysis must be repeated completely whenever the underlying source or architecture models or the mapping changes. In large systems, the recomputation can hinder interactive use as users expect an immediate response to their changes. This paper describes an incremental reflexion analysis that does not require a complete repetition of the reflexion analysis. Instead, it repeats the analysis only for those parts that are actually influenced by a change. The incremental reflexion analysis is evaluated on large real‐world systems. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Encapsulating targeted component abstractions using software Reflexion Modelling

Cited by 7 publications

References 37 publications

Real-Time Reflexion Modelling in architecture reconciliation: A multi case study

Real-Time Reflexion Modelling in architecture reconciliation: A multi case study

Architecture consistency: State of the practice, challenges and requirements

Incremental reflexion analysis

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