Procedure Calls Are the Assembly Language of Software
Interconnection: Connectors Deserve First-Class Status
Author: Mary Shaw
In D.A. Lamb (Ed), Studies of Software Design, Proceedings of a
1993 Workshop, Lecture Notes in Computer Science No 1078,
Springer-Verlag, pp. 17-32, 1996.
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Abstract
Software designers compose systems from components written in some
programming language. They regularly describe systems using abstract
pat-terns and sophisticated relations among components. However, the
configuration tools at their disposal restrict them to composition
mechanisms directly supported by the programming language. To remedy
this lack of expressiveness, we must elevate the relations among components to first-class entities of the system, entitled to their
own specifications and abstractions.
Keywords: software architecture, system configuration idioms,
software design
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