Software Architectures for Shared Information
Author: Mary Shaw
In D.M. Steier and T.M. Mitchell (Eds.), Mind Matters:
A Tribute to Allen Newell.
Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1996, pp. 219-251.
Abstract
Software system design takes place at many levels. Different kinds of
design elements, notations, and analyses distinguish these levels. At
the software architecture level, designers combine subsystems
into complete systems. This paper studies some of the common patters,
or idioms, that guide these configurations. Results from software
architecture offer some insight into the problems of systems
integration - the task of connecting individual, isolated,
pre-existing software systems to provide coherent, distributed
solutions to large problems. As computing has become more
sophisticated, so too have the software structures used in the integration task. This paper reviews historical examples of shared
information systems in three different applications whose requirements
share some common features about collecting, manipulating, and
preserving large bodies of complex information. These applications
have similar architectural histories in which a succession of designs
responds to new technologies and new requirements for flexible, highly
dynamics responses. A common pattern, the shared information
system evolution pattern, appears in all three areas.
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Software Systems Research Group in the School
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University.
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