Software architecture

Software architecture is a coherent set of abstract patterns guiding the design of each aspect of a larger software system.

Views

Software architecture is commonly organised in views, which are analogous to the different types of blueprints made in common architecture. Some possible views are:

Related Topics:
Blueprint - Architecture

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• Functional/logic view
• Code view
• Development/structural view
• Concurrency/process/thread view
• Physical/deployment view
• User action/feedback view

Several languages for describing software architectures have been devised, but no consensus has yet been reached on which symbol-set and view-system should be adopted. Some believe that UML will establish a standard for software architecture views. Others believe that effective development of software relies on understanding unique constraints of each problem, and so universal notations are doomed because each provides a notational bias that necessarily makes the notation useless or dangerous for some set of tasks. They point to the proliferation of programming languages and a succession of failed attempts to impose a single 'universal language' on programmers, as proof that software thrives on diversity and not on standards.

Related Topics:
UML - Notational bias - Programming language

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