2012/06/22 by David Ameller, Ameller, David, Xavier Franch +1
Computer Science · #Advanced Software Engineering Methodologies #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Software Engineering (cs.SE) #Software Engineering Research #Software System Performance and Reliability #cs.SE
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1206.5166
arxiv created 2012/06/22 · openalex publication_date 2012/06/22 · arxiv updated 2012/06/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Quality attributes and constraints are among the main drivers of architectural decision making. The quality attributes are improved or damaged by the architectural decisions, while restrictions directly include or exclude parts of the architecture (for example, the logical components or technologies). We can determine the impact of a decision of architecture in software quality, or which parts of the architecture are affected by a constraint, but the difficult problem is whether we are respecting the quality requirements (requirements on quality attributes) and constraints with all the architectural decisions made. Currently, the common practice is that architects use their own experience to design architectures that meet the quality requirements and restrictions, but at the end, especially for the crucial decisions, the architect has to deal with complex trade-offs between quality attributes and juggle possible incompatibilities raised by the constraints. In this paper we present Quark, a computer-aided method to support architects in software architecture decision making.