Procedure Calls Are the Assembly Language of Software Interconnection: Connectors Deserve First-Class Status

Author: Mary Shaw

In D.A. Lamb (Ed), Studies of Software Design, Proceedings of a 1993 Workshop, Lecture Notes in Computer Science No 1078, Springer-Verlag, pp. 17-32, 1996.

Download the Postscript or PDF of the technical report version.

Abstract

Software designers compose systems from components written in some programming language. They regularly describe systems using abstract pat-terns and sophisticated relations among components. However, the configuration tools at their disposal restrict them to composition mechanisms directly supported by the programming language. To remedy this lack of expressiveness, we must elevate the relations among components to first-class entities of the system, entitled to their own specifications and abstractions.

Keywords: software architecture, system configuration idioms, software design


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