Abstract
Executable software architecture descriptions enable architects to validate or verify the correctness of their designs early in the development process of software-intensive systems, reducing the risk of costly misconceptions. Executable architectures have been the subject of research for several decades, but there is no comprehensive panorama of the state of the art on this topic. To fill this gap, we conducted a systematic mapping study that explores activities and approaches related to executable architecture descriptions for designing software-intensive systems. We have selected and analyzed 45 studies from the last 30 years to understand the activities related to executing architecture descriptions and identify the existing approaches. We also devised a taxonomy with key concepts related to executable architecture descriptions for software-intensive systems. The resulting insights from our study can help researchers pinpoint areas for further investigation.
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Data Availability Statement
The study data can be found in the replication package available online at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11508112.
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Acknowledgments
This study was financed in part by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Brazil - Finance Code 001, and INES (https://www.ines.org.br) - CNPq grant 465614/2014-0, CAPES grant 88887.136410/2017-00, and FACEPE grants APQ-0399-1.03/17 and PRONEX APQ/0388-1.03/14. T. Batista is a CNPq Research Fellow, grant 315963/2021-2. E. Cavalcante is supported by the Research Development Grant from the Durham University Research Staff Association via the Enhancing Research Culture Fund.
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Viglioni, T., Batista, T., Cavalcante, E., Oquendo, F. (2024). The Execution Perspective in Software Architecture Descriptions: A Systematic Mapping. In: Galster, M., Scandurra, P., Mikkonen, T., Oliveira Antonino, P., Nakagawa, E.Y., Navarro, E. (eds) Software Architecture. ECSA 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14889. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70797-1_26
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