From: johnson@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Ralph Johnson)
Subject: OOPSLA Workshop on "Architecture Handbook"
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 21:34:51 GMT

I went to this last year, and it was a blast.  It gave me lots
of ideas, I met good people, and I had a paper from it a year
later, which is about as much as you can ask from a workshop.
If you are an experienced OO designer going to OOPSLA then I
strongly recommend this workshop.

Note: the "architecture handbook" is a vision, and we are trying
to make that vision a reality.  This is not a sales presentation
for an existing book!

		OOPSLA'92 - VANCOUVER - WORKSHOP
	all day Monday 19 October 1992 in Vancouver BC

TOWARDS AN ARCHITECTURE HANDBOOK

Architectures are the structuring paradigms, styles and patterns that
describe, or make up, our software systems. OOP provides a significant
step forward in the technology of program building because it allows us
to express more of this information in the software itself.
Architectures exist at different levels; for example we have overall
architectures such as Model-View-Controller or Blackboard, and we have
smaller-scale architectures such as a hierarchy of alternative
functional classes or the decision to use self-methods.

The Architecture Handbook catalogues, classifies and organises these
patterns and techniques, and gives examples of them.

Of course many issues are raised by our attempt to build a handbook, and
these issues are themselves discussed in it.  In particular: how such a
handbook is used; maintaining the handbook; process models that include
the handbook; what the handbook cannot teach; alternative structures for
the handbook.

A draft Handbook was created during a workshop at OOPSLA'91, and has
been refined since.  The Vancouver workshop is to:
	- edit and improve entries received so far
	- refine the handbook structure
	- make plans for the future

The workshop process is an opportunity for us to clarify and extend our
ideas on architectures and software patterns in object-oriented
programming. We will work mostly in small groups, with no prepared
presentations, doing a lot of writing and discussing, and using
structures such as brainstorming and guided fantasy to speed us along.
We will complete our revised Handbook by the day's end. I will organise
a BOF where other OOPSLA attendees can review and extend our output.

Workshop participants should be experienced OO practitioners who have
built, or worked with, large and/or interesting systems. This workshop
involves reflection on professional practice, not discussion of
"theoretical" proposals. If you wish to attend, please request a
"Handbook Author's Kit" by electronic mail.  You will receive:
	- excerpts from the current Handbook draft
	- instructions for new entries
and must then submit a new entry (of 4-8 pages of ascii, single-spaced)
and a half-page biography.  Revised versions of these documents will be
circulated to all participants, to form the initial basis of our work
together. The deadline for final documents is 1 September 1992.

Bruce Anderson	bruce@hpcea.ce.hp.com
(University of Essex, England, on sabbatical at Hewlett-Packard)
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