Software architectures shift the focus of developers from lines-of-code to coarsergrained architectural elements and their overall interconnection structure. Architecture description languages (ADLs) have been proposed as modeling notations to support architecture-based development. There is, however, little consensus in the research community on what is an ADL, what aspects of an architecture should be modeled in an ADL, and which of several possible ADLs is best suited for a particular problem. Furthermore, the distinction is rarely made between ADLs on one hand and formal specification, module interconnection, simulation, and programming languages on the other. This paper attempts to provide an answer to these questions. It motivates and presents a definition and a classification framework for ADLs. The utility of the definition is demonstrated by using it to differentiate ADLs from other modeling notations. The framework is also used to classify and compare several existing ADLs. One conclusion is that, although much research has been done in this area, no single ADL fulfills all of the identified needs. 2
In the domain of CBSE, Architectural Description Language (ADL) have been proposed in order to describe the configuration and the assembling of component-based systems REF .
A Classification and Comparison Framework for Software Architecture Description Languages
IEEE Trans. Software Eng.
Computer Science