What is hard about software architecture

Jul 5, 2007 | George Fairbanks

Here’s my initial list of things that are hard about software architecture. Many are open research questions.

• Non-static component configurations. That is, dynamic architectures.
• Bridging objects to components. Each has a different vocabulary and communication idioms.
• Cost-benefit analysis. How much benefit do you get from doing some architecture modeling, and when should you stop?
• Modeling of connectors and ports. When to use an N-way connector? When to attach two connectors to the same port?
• Refinement. Code-architecture unity / correspondence / assurance.
• Frameworks.
• Multiple languages (especially scripting languages) in one system.
• Evaluating alternative architectures.
• Choosing which qualities to promote to the architectural level.
• Using architecture models to discover problems in advance, not just document designs after the fact.
• Shoehorning your abstractions into {component, connector, port, role}
• Behavior. More specifically, how to abstractly model architectural behavior without continuing on into detailed behavior descriptions.
• Designs or patterns that span components.