ArchJava : Related Work

Architecture Description Languages

Many architecture description languages (ADLs) have been defined to describe, model, check, and implement software architectures. Many of these languages support sophisticated analysis and reasoning or support architecture-centric development. Some recent ADLs include:

• Wright allows architects to specify temporal communication protocols and check properties such as deadlock freedom.
• UniCon is an architectural description language whose focus is on supporting the variety of architectural parts and styles found in the real world and on constructing systems from their architecture descriptions.
• Acme is a simple, generic software architecture description language (ADL) that can be used as a common interchange format for architecture design tools and/or as a foundation for developing new architectural design and analysis tools.
• Aesop provides a generic toolkit and communication infrastructure that users can customize with architectural style descriptions and a set of tools that they would like to use for architectural analysis.
• C2 is a general component- and message-based architectural style that is well-suited for large-scale, heterogeneous, and distributed applications. The C2 SADL is an ADL for expressing architectures in the C2 style.
• Darwin is to specify system architectures in terms of components and their interconnections
• MetaH specifies how software modules developed in a variety of styles are composed together with hardware objects to form a complete system architecture
• The Rapide language effort focuses on developing a new technology for building large-scale, distributed multi-language systems
• SADL formalizes architectures in terms of theories, shows how generic refinement operations can be proved correct, and describes a number of flexible refinement patterns.
• Weaves are networks of concurrently executing tool fragments that communicate by passing objects. A reference to Weaves is Using Weaves for Software Construction and Analysis by Michael M. Gorlick and Rami R. Razouk. Proceedings of the 13th Interational Conference on Software Engineering, May 1991.
• xArch is a standard, extensible XML-based representation for software architectures

An excellent overview and comparison of Architecture Description Languages prior to 2000 is given in A Classification and Comparison Framework for Software Architecture Description Languages by Nenad Medvidovic and Richard N. Taylor. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, January 2000

Aspect-Oriented Programming

Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a new technology for separation of concerns (SOC) in software development. The techniques of AOP make it possible to modularize crosscutting aspects of a system. ArchJava can be thought of as an aspect-oriented programming language with support for separating crosscutting structural concerns from behavioral concerns. Other AOP languages support separating behavioral concerns at a finer grain:

• AspectJ is a seamless aspect-oriented extension to Java that enables the modular implementation of a wide range of crosscutting concerns.
• Hyper/J supports "multi-dimensional" separation and integration of concerns in standard Java software.
• The Law of Demeter states "only talk to your immediate friends" in a system. It is closely related to ArchJava's concept of communication integrity. The DemeterJ and DJ languages facilitate the structure-shy encapsulation of traversal-related behavioral concerns in pure Java.
• The ConcernBASE project aims at providing a software engineering approach that complements the abstractions and mechanisms found in current ADLs, allows for simultaneous separation of overlapping concerns in software architecture descriptions and provides flexible means of supporting architecture-centered software development.
• Composition Filters supports aspect-oriented programming with filters on objects that can inspect and manipulate incoming messages.