Stop the Software Architecture Erosion: Building better software systems

摘要

In lots of software projects unfortunately an architectural erosion happens over time. Modules which were independent, become interconnected, plugins finally depend on each other, and in general the architecture gets violated more and more. In this paper we will discuss how to avoid such architecture- and design-erosion and how an already eroded system can be fixed again. We will look at three different level of static analysis and examine architectural analysis in detail. Also typical use cases for architectural analysis are examined, followed by a collection of requirements for powerful tool support. The eclipse platform serves as case study and we look if, and how far architectural erosion happened there and if it can be fixed. Finally we discuss pros and cons of architectural analysis and conclude with an out view.