Towards a Design-by-contract based Approach for Realizable Connector-centric Software Architectures

Mert Ozkaya, Christos Kloukinas

2013

Abstract

Despite being a widely-used language for specifying software systems, UML remains less than ideal for software architectures. Architecture description languages (ADLs) were developed to provide more comprehensive support. However, so far the application of ADLs in practice has been impeded by at least one of the following problems: (i) advanced formal notations, (ii) lack of support for complex connectors, and (iii) potentially unrealizable designs. In this paper we propose a new ADL that is based on Design-by-Contract (DbC) for specifying software architectures. While DbC promotes a formal and precise way of specifying system behaviours, it is more familiar to practising developers, thus allowing for a more comfortable way of specifying architectures than using process algebras. Furthermore, by granting connectors a first-class status, our ADL allows designers to specify not only simple interaction mechanisms as connectors but also complex interaction protocols. Finally, in order to ensure that architectural designs are always realizable we eliminate potentially unrealizable constructs in connector specifications (the connector “glue”).

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Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Ozkaya M. and Kloukinas C. (2013). Towards a Design-by-contract based Approach for Realizable Connector-centric Software Architectures . In Proceedings of the 8th International Joint Conference on Software Technologies - Volume 1: ICSOFT-PT, (ICSOFT 2013) ISBN 978-989-8565-68-6, pages 555-562. DOI: 10.5220/0004592305550562


in Bibtex Style

@conference{icsoft-pt13,
author={Mert Ozkaya and Christos Kloukinas},
title={Towards a Design-by-contract based Approach for Realizable Connector-centric Software Architectures},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 8th International Joint Conference on Software Technologies - Volume 1: ICSOFT-PT, (ICSOFT 2013)},
year={2013},
pages={555-562},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0004592305550562},
isbn={978-989-8565-68-6},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 8th International Joint Conference on Software Technologies - Volume 1: ICSOFT-PT, (ICSOFT 2013)
TI - Towards a Design-by-contract based Approach for Realizable Connector-centric Software Architectures
SN - 978-989-8565-68-6
AU - Ozkaya M.
AU - Kloukinas C.
PY - 2013
SP - 555
EP - 562
DO - 10.5220/0004592305550562