Abstract
Architectural prototyping is the process of using executable code to investigate stakeholders’ software architecture concerns with respect to a system under development. Previous work has established this as a useful and cost-effective way of exploration and learning of the design space of a system, in addressing issues regarding quality attributes, in addressing architectural risks, and in addressing the problem of knowledge transfer and conformance. Little work has been reported so far on the actual industrial use of architectural prototyping. In this paper, we report from an ethnographical study and focus group involving architects from four companies in which we have focused on architectural prototypes. Our findings conclude that architectural prototypes play an important role in resolving problems experimentally, but less so in exploring alternative solutions. Furthermore, architectural prototypes include end-user or business related functionality rather than purely architectural functionality. Based on these observations we provide recommendations for effective industrial architectural prototyping.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bardram, J.E., Christensen, H.B., Hansen, K.M.: Architectural Prototyping: An Approach for Grounding Architectural Design. In: Proceedings of Fourth Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA4), Oslo, Norway, pp. 15–24 (June 2004)
Bardram, J.E., Christensen, H.B., Corry, A.V., Hansen, K.M., Ingstrup, M.: Exploring Quality Attributes Using Architectural Prototyping. In: Reussner, R., Mayer, J., Stafford, J.A., Overhage, S., Becker, S., Schroeder, P.J. (eds.) QoSA 2005 and SOQUA 2005. LNCS, vol. 3712, pp. 155–170. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Bass, L., Clements, P., Kazman, R.: Software Architecture in Practice, 2nd edn. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2003)
Buschmann, F., Meunier, R., Rohnert, H., Sommerlad, P., Stal, M.: Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture: A System of Patterns. Wiley, Chichester (1996)
Christensen, H.B.: Towards an Operational Framework for Architectural Prototyping. In: Proceedings of the 5th Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA 2005), pp. 301–302 (2005)
Christensen, H.B., Hansen, K.M., Schougaard, K.R.: Ready! Set! Go! An Action Research Agenda for Software Architecture Research. In: Proceedings of Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA) 2008 (2008)
Christensen, H.B., Hansen, K.M., Schougaard, K.R.: SA@Work - A Field Study of Software Architecture and Software Quality at Work (under submission, 2008)
Clements, P., Kazman, R., Klein, M.: Evaluating software architectures: methods and case studies. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2002)
Farenhorst, R., Izaks, R., Lago, P., van Vliet, H.: A Just-In-Time Architectural Knowledge Sharing Portal. In: Proceedings of the Seventh Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA 2008), pp. 125–134 (2008)
Floyd, C.: A systematic look at prototyping. In: Budde, R., Kuhlenkamp, K., Mathiassen, L., Züllighoven, H. (eds.) Approaches to Prototyping, pp. 1–18. Springer, Heidelberg (1984)
Grønbæk, K., Kyng, M., Mogensen, P.: Toward a cooperative experimental system development approach. In: Kyng, M., Mathiassen, L. (eds.) Computers and Design in Context, pp. 201–238. MIT Press, Cambridge (1997)
Hammersley, M., Atkinson, P.: Ethnography. Principles in Practice. London & New York, Routledge (1997)
Jørgensen, M., Sjøberg, D.: Generalization and Theory Building in Software Engineering Research. Empirical Assessment in Software Eng. Proc., 29–36 (2004)
Kazman, R., Klein, M., Clements, P.: ATAM: Method for Architecture Evaluation. Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute (2000)
Kruchten, P.: The Rational Unified Process: An Introduction. Addison-Wesley Professional, Reading (2003)
Kruchten, P.: The 4+1 view model of architecture. IEEE Software 12(6), 42–50 (1995)
Larman, C., Basili, V.R.: Iterative and incremental development. A brief history. IEEE Computer 36(6), 47–56 (2003)
Mårtensson, F., Grahn, H., Mattsson, M.: An Approach for Performance Evaluation of Software Architectures using Prototyping. In: Proc. Int’l Conference on Software Engineering and Applications (SEA 2003), pp. 605–612 (2003)
Miluk, G.: Results of a field study of cmmi for small settings using rapid applied ethnography. Technical Report CMU/SEI-2006-SR-001, Software Engeneering Institute, Carnegie Mellon (2006)
Paulish, D., Gorton, I., Tyree, J., Soni, D. (eds.): Proceedings of Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA) 2007. IEEE, Los Alamitos (2007)
Shaw, M., Garlan, D.: Software architecture: perspectives on an emerging discipline. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River (1996)
Sjøberg, D., Dyba, T., Jørgensen, M.: The future of empirical methods in software engineering research. In: International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 358–378 (2007)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Christensen, H.B., Hansen, K.M. (2008). Architectural Prototyping in Industrial Practice. In: Morrison, R., Balasubramaniam, D., Falkner, K. (eds) Software Architecture. ECSA 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5292. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88030-1_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88030-1_15
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-88029-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-88030-1
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)