Functional Representation of Software Architectures

ARPA-funded researchers at Ohio State University have developed a method for capturing and exploiting deep understanding of software architectures. Architecture evolution tasks require knowing an architecture's intentions as well as the structure given by existing architecture description languages (ADL's). FR-RAPIDE shows how to provide useful explanations by connecting design intentions to ADL descriptions. This will reduce the cost of designing, evolving, and implementing architectures by improving human communication, and by providing more useful tools and environments.

FR-RAPIDE applies Chandrasekaran's Functional Representation to aid architecture prototyping with Luckham's RAPIDE system at Stanford. Functional Representation is a theory and language for reasoning about functionality and causal processes in devices. It has been successfully applied to a large variety of tasks and devices, including software. RAPIDE is an executable ADL based on a rule-event execution model. An example Functional Representation has been created which explains how part of the Two-Phase Commit protocol is implemented in a RAPIDE prototype. It captures understanding in domains such as transaction processing, the X/Open standard, concurrent computing, and distributed computing. The FR is a formal representation which helps humans understand and communicate about the architecture. It also allows understanding to be delivered and exploited by tools and environments, eg. for browsing, documentation, and trace interpretation.