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Architectural description languages (ADLs) vs UML: a review

Published: 11 May 2010 Publication History

Abstract

The field of software architecture which is considered as a subfield of software engineering is now about two decades old. During this period a number of software Architecture Description Languages (ADLs) emerged and vanished. But none of the ADLs became much popular amongst the practitioners except a few, that too only in a specific domain. On the other hand Unified Modeling Language (UML) which some times is not even accepted as an ADL or accepted with a some hesitation has become an industry de facto standard notation for documenting software architectures. This paper makes an attempt to find an answer to this question as to what went wrong with the ADLs that they did not become much popular beyond their place of origin. Is UML really an Architecture Description Language.

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes
ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes  Volume 35, Issue 3
May 2010
151 pages
ISSN:0163-5948
DOI:10.1145/1764810
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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 11 May 2010
Published in SIGSOFT Volume 35, Issue 3

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Author Tags

  1. architecture description languages (ADLs)
  2. software architecture
  3. unified modeling language (UML)

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  • (2023)Verifying contracts among software componentsInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107282163:COnline publication date: 1-Nov-2023
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