article

Free access

Foundations for the study of software architecture

Authors:

Dewayne E. Perry,

Alexander L. WolfAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, Volume 17, Issue 4

Pages 40 - 52

https://doi.org/10.1145/141874.141884

Published: 01 October 1992 Publication History

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to build the foundation for software architecture. We first develop an intuition for software architecture by appealing to several well-established architectural disciplines. On the basis of this intuition, we present a model of software architecture that consists of three components: elements, form, and rationale. Elements are either processing, data, or connecting elements. Form is defined in terms of the properties of, and the relationships among, the elements --- that is, the constraints on the elements. The rationale provides the underlying basis for the architecture in terms of the system constraints, which most often derive from the system requirements. We discuss the components of the model in the context of both architectures and architectural styles and present an extended example to illustrate some important architecture and style considerations. We conclude by presenting some of the benefits of our approach to software architecture, summarizing our contributions, and relating our approach to other current work.

References

[1]

[1] G.S. Avrunin, L.K. Dillon., J.C. Wileden, and W.E. Riddle, Constrained Expressions: Adding Analysis Capabilities to Design Methods for Concurrent Systems, IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering, Vol. SE-12, No. 2, Feb. 1986, pp. 278-292.

Digital Library

[2]

[2] J.L. Bentley, Writing Efficient Programs, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1982.

Digital Library

[3]

[3] G.D. Bergland, A Guided Tour of Program Design Methodologies, IEEE Computer, Vol. 14, No. 10, Oct. 1981, pp. 13-37.

Digital Library

[4]

[4] B.W. Boehm, Software Engineering Economics, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1981.

Digital Library

[5]

[5] F.P. Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man-Month, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1972.

Digital Library

[6]

[6] R.H. Campbell and A.N. Habermann, The Specification of Process Synchronization by Path Expressions, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, No. 16, Apr. 1974, pp. 89-102.

Digital Library

[7]

[7] E.J. Chikofsky (ed.), Software Development -- Computer-aided Software Engineering, Technology Series, IEEE Computer Society Press, 1988.

Digital Library

[8]

[8] G. Estrin, R.S. Fenchel, R.R. Razouk, and M.K. Vernon, SARA (System ARchitects Apprentice), IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering, Vol. SE-12, No. 2, Feb. 1986, pp. 293-277.

Digital Library

[9]

[9] P. Freeman and A.I. Wasserman, Tutorial on Software Design Techniques, IEEE Computer Society Press, 1976.

Digital Library

[10]

[10] D. Jackson, Composing Data and Process Descriptions in the Design of Software Systems, LCS Tech. Report 419, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, May 1988.

Digital Library

[11]

[11] F.C. Mish, Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam Webster, Springfield, MA, 1983.

[12]

[12] J.E.B. Moss and A.L. Wolf, Toward Principles of Inheritance and Subtyping for Programming Languages, COINS Tech. Report 88-95, COINS Dept., Univ. of Mass., Amherst, MA, Nov. 1988.

Digital Library

[13]

[13] J.D. Musa, Software Reliability: Measurement, Prediction, Application, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, 1990.

Digital Library

[14]

[14] D.E. Perry, The Inscape Environment, Proc. Eleventh Inter. Conf. on Software Engineering, Pittsburgh, PA, IEEE Computer Society Press, May 1989, pp. 2-12.

Digital Library

[15]

[15] D.E. Perry, Industrial Strength Software Development Environments, Proc. IFIP Congress '89, The 11th World Computer Congress, San Francisco, CA, Aug. 1989.

[16]

[16] J.L. Peterson, Petri Nets, ACM Computing Surveys, Vol. 9, No. 3, Sept. 1977, pp. 223-252.

Digital Library

[17]

[17] W.E. Riddle and J.C. Wileden, Tutorial on Software System Design: Description and Analysis, Computer Society Press, 1980.

[18]

[18] W.R. Rosenblatt, J.C. Wileden, and A.L. Wolf, OROS: Towards a Type Model for Software Development Environments, Proc. OOPSLA '89, New Orleans, Louisiana, October 1989.

Digital Library

[19]

[19] E. Sandewall, C. Strömberg, and H. Sörensen, Software Architecture Based on Communicating Residential Environments , Proc. Fifth Inter. Conf. on Software Engineering, San Diego, CA, IEEE Computer Society Press, Mar. 1981, pp. 144-152.

Digital Library

[20]

[20] R.W. Schwanke, R.Z. Altucher, and M.A. Platoff, Discovering, Visualizing and Controlling Software Structure , Proc. Fifth Inter. Workshop on Software Specification and Design, Pittsburgh, PA, May 1989, appearing in ACM SIGSOFT Notes, Vol. 14, No. 3, May 1989, pp. 147-150.

Digital Library

[21]

[21] M. Shaw, Larger Scale Systems Require Higher-Level Abstractions, Proc. Fifth Inter. Workshop on Software Specification and Design, Pittsburgh, PA, May 1989, appearing in ACM SIGSOFT Notes, Vol. 14, No. 3, May 1989, pp. 143-146.

[22]

[22] A.Z. Spector, Modular Architectures for Distributed and Database Systems, Proc. Eighth ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART Symp. on Principles of Database Systems, Philadelphia, PA, ACM Press, Mar. 1989, pp. 217-224.

Digital Library

[23]

[23] J.A. Zachman, A Framework for Information Systems Architecture, IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 26, No. 3, 1987.

Digital Library

Cited By

Salas-Zárate RAlor-Hernández GParedes-Valverde MSalas-Zárate MBustos-López MSánchez-Cervantes J(2024)Mental-Health: An NLP-Based System for Detecting Depression Levels through User Comments on Twitter (X)Mathematics10.3390/math1213192612:13(1926)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/math12131926
Zhu HZhao JSultana N(2024)A Domain-Specific Language for Reconfigurable, Distributed SoftwareInternational Journal of Networking and Computing10.15803/ijnc.14.1_4014:1(40-80)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.15803/ijnc.14.1_40
Kumar MChoppella V(2024)Enhancing MVC architecture pattern description using its System of Systems modelProceedings of the 17th Innovations in Software Engineering Conference10.1145/3641399.3641410(1-11)Online publication date: 22-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641399.3641410
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Foundations for the study of software architecture
1. Software and its engineering

Recommendations

What is software architecture?
SAICSIT '12: Proceedings of the South African Institute for Computer Scientists and Information Technologists Conference

Currently there is no consensus on what exactly software architecture is or where the boundary between software architecture design and application design lies. In this paper the concept of a software architecture is analyzed from a number of different ...
Software architecture: foundations, theory, and practice
ICSE '10: Proceedings of the 32nd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering - Volume 2

Software architecture has become a centerpiece subject for software engineers, both researchers and practitioners alike. At the heart of every software system is its software architecture, i.e., "the set of principal design decisions about the system". ...
Software architecture: reflections on an evolving discipline
ESEC/FSE '11: Proceedings of the 19th ACM SIGSOFT symposium and the 13th European conference on Foundations of software engineering

Software Architecture emerged in the 1990's as an important sub-field of software engineering. While good architectural design had long been recognized as critical to the success of any complex software system, before then the practice of architecting ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes

ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes Volume 17, Issue 4

Oct. 1992

52 pages

ISSN:0163-5948

DOI:10.1145/141874

Editor:
Peter G. Neumann
SRI International, Menlo Park, CA

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 1992 Authors.

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 October 1992

Published in SIGSOFT Volume 17, Issue 4

Check for updates

Qualifiers

Article

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

1,427
Total Citations
View Citations
12,619
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)1,057
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)161

Reflects downloads up to 20 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Salas-Zárate RAlor-Hernández GParedes-Valverde MSalas-Zárate MBustos-López MSánchez-Cervantes J(2024)Mental-Health: An NLP-Based System for Detecting Depression Levels through User Comments on Twitter (X)Mathematics10.3390/math1213192612:13(1926)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/math12131926
Zhu HZhao JSultana N(2024)A Domain-Specific Language for Reconfigurable, Distributed SoftwareInternational Journal of Networking and Computing10.15803/ijnc.14.1_4014:1(40-80)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.15803/ijnc.14.1_40
Kumar MChoppella V(2024)Enhancing MVC architecture pattern description using its System of Systems modelProceedings of the 17th Innovations in Software Engineering Conference10.1145/3641399.3641410(1-11)Online publication date: 22-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641399.3641410
Cho SCaporusso NDoyle M(2024)P4: Principles, Patterns, Practices, and Projects for Effective Software Engineering Education2024 47th MIPRO ICT and Electronics Convention (MIPRO)10.1109/MIPRO60963.2024.10569934(1289-1294)Online publication date: 20-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/MIPRO60963.2024.10569934
Anthony EBerntsson ASantilli TWohlrab R(2024)We're Drifting Apart: Architectural Drift from the Developers' Perspective2024 IEEE 21st International Conference on Software Architecture (ICSA)10.1109/ICSA59870.2024.00018(101-111)Online publication date: 4-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSA59870.2024.00018
Vergara-Vargas JSadou STibermacine CRestrepo-Calle F(2024)Sarch-Checks: A Method for Checking Software Architecture Security Properties Using a Knowledge Graph2024 IEEE 21st International Conference on Software Architecture Companion (ICSA-C)10.1109/ICSA-C63560.2024.00030(135-142)Online publication date: 4-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSA-C63560.2024.00030
Cai YKazman R(2024)Software design analysis and technical debt management based on design rule theoryInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107322164:COnline publication date: 10-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107322
Li RLiang PAvgeriou P(2024)WarningsInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107319164:COnline publication date: 10-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107319
Balasubramaniam SVijesh Joe CManthiramoorthy CSatheesh Kumar K(2024)ReliefF based feature selection and Gradient Squirrel search Algorithm enabled Deep Maxout Network for detection of heart diseaseBiomedical Signal Processing and Control10.1016/j.bspc.2023.10544687(105446)Online publication date: Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bspc.2023.105446
Jean de Dieu MLiang PShahin MYang CLi Z(2024)Mining architectural information: A systematic mapping studyEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-024-10480-629:4Online publication date: 4-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-024-10480-6
Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents