Software architecture design domain

Conference · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:501620

White, S A ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Houston, TX (United States)

Software architectures can provide a basis for the capture and subsequent reuse of design knowledge. The goal of software architecture is to allow the design of a system to take place at a higher level of abstraction; a level concerned with components, connections, constraints, rationale. This architectural view of software adds a new layer of abstraction to the traditional design phase of software development. It has resulted in a flurry of activity towards techniques, tools, and architectural design languages developed specifically to assist with this activity. An analysis of architectural descriptions, even though they differ in notation, shows a common set of key constructs that are present across widely varying domains. These common aspects form a core set of constructs that should belong to any ADL in order to for the language to offer the ability to specify software systems at the architectural level. This analysis also revealed a second set of constructs which served to expand the first set thereby improving the syntax and semantics. These constructs are classified according to whether they provide representation and analysis support for architectures belonging to many varying application domains (domain-independent construct class) or to a particular application domain (domain-dependent constructs). This paper presents the constructs of these two classes, their placement in the architecture design domain and shows how they may be used to classify, select, and analyze proclaimed architectural design languages (ADLs).

• OSTI ID: 501620
• Report Number(s): CONF-961239--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
COMPUTER CODES
DESIGN
PROGRAMMING
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES