Composing heterogeneous software architectures

A persistent problem in software engineering is how to put complex software systems together out of smaller subsystems, the problem of software composition. The emergence of software architectures and architectural styles has introduced a higher level of abstraction at which we can create and compose software systems. We examine the problem of providing formal semantics to the composition of different architectural styles within software systems, i.e. the problem of composing heterogeneous architectures. We describe a model of pure styles, and a model of their composition. Our model of pure styles is highlighted by a uniform representation for describing many different styles. An architectural style space of major conceptual features is introduced which allows new styles to be rapidly incorporated into the model, including commercial-off-the-shelf packages which embody a specific style(s). We show a disciplined approach to the process of architectural composition , and show how architecture mismatches can be generated during composition. Finally, we describe a prototype tool which is built on top of the models. In the following sections, we present a high-level introduction to the field of software architectures and style composition, and a concise description of the problem which we examined for the dissertation. We also summarize the steps in our approach towards solving the problem. A persistent problem in computer science is how to put software systems together out of smaller subsystems, the problem of software composition. There are many levels of granularity at which this problem can be tackled. For example, some of the earliest software engineers dealt with systems at the machine language or assembly language level of granularity. Succeeding engineers addressed the composition problem at a coarser granularity using higher level programming languages. The emergence of software architectures and architectural styles has introduced a still coarser level of granularity (and higher level of abstraction) at which we can create and compose software systems. One of the earliest discussions of software composition at the architec

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