SAAM: a method for analyzing the properties of software architectures
ICSE '94 Proceedings of the 16th international conference on Software engineering
Evaluating user interface tools
CHI '94 Conference Companion on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Zippering: managing intermittent connectivity in DIANA
Mobile Networks and Applications - Special issue on personal communications services
A survey on software architecture analysis methods
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
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Software architecture is an increasingly important research topic and in this report we investigate the potential role of architecture in evaluating the properties of a system built to a particular architecture. Currently such architectural analysis is complicated for two main reasons: authors of new architectures describe their creations in idiosyncratic terms; and there is no clear way of understanding an architecture with respect to an organization''s life cycle concerns -- efficiency, maintainability, modifiability, and so forth. This report addresses these shortcomings by proposing a domain-based method for analyzing software architectures called SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method). This method contains several steps. A canonical functional partitioning for the domain is adopted. Next, some candidate architectures in this domain are described in a common and simple structural language, providing a neutral context in which to understand their similarities and differences. Next, life cycle concerns for the quality of the resultant software are determined and a set of benchmark tasks are created which embody these concerns. Finally, the architectures are evaluated and compared with respect to how well they support the benchmark tasks. This report illustrates the method by analyzing user interface architectures with respect to the quality of modifiability.