Reconciling the Needs of Architectural Description with Object-Modeling Notations
Authors: David Garlan, Andrew Kompanek
Proceedings of the Third International Conference on the Unified Modeling Language - << UML >> 2000, York, UK, October 2000.
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Abstract
Complex software systems require expressive notations for representing
their software architectures. Two competing paths have emerged. One is
to use a specialized notation for architecture -- or architecture
description language (ADL). The other is to adapt a general-purpose
modeling notation, such as UML. The latter has a number of benefits
including familiarity to developers, close mapping to implementations,
and commercial tool support. However, it remains an open question as
to how best to use object-oriented notations for architectural
description, and, indeed, whether they are sufficiently expressive, as
currently defined. In this paper we take a systematic look at these
questions, examining the space of possible mappings from ADLs into
object notations. Specifically, we describe (a) the principle
strategies for representing architectural structure in UML; (b) the
benefits and limitations of each strategy; and (c) aspects of
architectural description that are intrinsically difficult to model in
UML using the strategies.
Keywords: Software Architecture, Object Modeling, UML
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