ECSA 2024
Tue 3 - Fri 6 September 2024 Luxembourg, Luxembourg

During the process of software architectural design, numerous questions arise which must be answered. These questions may be about requirements on the proposed system (the problem space) or about how the system should be designed and developed (the solution space). As questions arise they may be answered immediately, deferred until later, or provisionally answered with an assumption about the answer. The objective of this work was to explore the nature of questions that arise during architecture. We explored the types of questions, how they are organized, how they are tracked, and how and when they are answered. We started by surveying highly experienced architects about their practices with respect to architectural questions. We also performed a controlled experiment with master students about organizing architectural questions that clarified and substantiated the survey data. We learned that architectural questions include slightly more questions about the problem space than the solution space, as well as a minority of questions related to the managing of the project. We found that architects often use ad hoc methods to organize and track them, although they typically organize them along more than one dimension. We learned also that, about a third of the time, architects make assumptions about the answers to architectural questions in order to make progress on the architecture. This suggests that some projects may have risks of incorrect design or later costly rework due to inadequate tracking or incorrectly answered architectural questions.

Wed 4 Sep

Displayed time zone: Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna change

16:00 - 17:30
Technical Session 3: Architecture modeling and designTools & Demos / Research Papers / Industry Program at Hollenfels
Chair(s): Everton Cavalcante Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte
16:00
25m
Full-paper
Integrating Data Quality in Industrial Big Data Architectures: an Action Design Research StudyIndustry
Industry Program
Ipek Ustunboyacioglu JADS/Tilburg University, Indika Kumara Tilburg University, Dario Di Nucci University of Salerno, Damian Andrew Tamburri TU/e, Willem-Jan van den Heuvel JADS/Tilburg University
File Attached
16:25
25m
Full-paper
The Nature of Questions that Arise During Software ArchitectureResearch Paper
Research Papers
Neil Harrison Utah Valley University, Ademar Aguiar Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto & INESC TEC
16:50
25m
Full-paper
Attention-based Method for Design Pattern DetectionArtifact Award CandidateResearch Paper
Research Papers
Rania Mzid University of Tunis El Manar -Higher Institute of Computer Science, Ilyes Rezgui University of Tunis El Manar -Higher Institute of Computer Science, Tewfik Ziadi LIP6, Sorbonne Université
17:15
5m
Paper
OAS2Tree: Visual API-First DesignTools & Demos
Tools & Demos
souhaila serbout Software Institute @ USI, Cesare Pautasso Software Institute, Faculty of Informatics, USI Lugano