Attribute Based Architectural Styles

Attribute-Based Architectural Style (ABAS)

Attribute-Based Architectural Styles (ABASs) are architecture patterns that can be used as building blocks for designing SoftwareArchitectures. ABASs build on ArchitecturalStyl?es (as defined by Shaw and Garlan and elaborated on by others) by explicitly associating a reasoning framework (whether qualitative or quantitative) with an ArchitecturalStyle. An ArchitecturalStyle is a description of component types and their topology, which includes a description of the pattern of data and control interaction among the components. Reasoning frameworks are based on QualityAttributes-specific models, which exist in the various QualityAttributes communities (such as the performance and reliability communities).

The ABAS project at the SoftwareEngineeringInstitute focuses on formalizing and cataloging various ArchitecturalStyles (aka Patterns). This project draws heavily on the work of the DesignPatterns community in order to evaluate architectures. Read these pages for more information:

• http://www.sei.cmu.edu/architecture/abas.html
• http://www.sei.cmu.edu/publications/documents/99.reports/99tr022/99tr022abstract.html

See also: SystemMetaphor, ProductLineApproach, SoftwareArchitectureInPractice, ArchitectureTradeoffAnalysisMethod

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Can anyone explain this stuff? It seems to be of no practical use at all. It's like talking about cars as if they had a speed attribute and thinking that actually meant anything.