Tackling Software Architecture Erosion: Joint Architecture and Implementation Repairing by a Knowledge-based Approach

TL;DR

This paper introduces a knowledge-based approach for jointly repairing software architecture and implementation to combat erosion, utilizing a holistic view and learning mechanisms for improved accuracy and efficiency.

Contribution

It presents a novel, comprehensive method that simultaneously repairs architecture and implementation, addressing a gap where existing approaches only focus on implementation repair.

Findings

Improves architecture and implementation consistency over time

Uses a project-specific knowledge base for targeted repairs

Enhances repair accuracy and efficiency

Abstract

Architecture erosion is a big challenge in modern architectures leading to a deterioration of the quality properties of these systems. Today, no comprehensive approach for regaining architecture consistency in eroded software systems exists and architecture consistency is essentially achieved by repairing the implementation level only. In this paper, we propose a novel approach enabling a joint architecture and implementation repairing for tackling software architecture erosion. By using a holistic view on violation causes and suitable repair actions in combination with learning mechanisms we build up a project specific knowledge-base improving accuracy and efficiency in consolidation of architecture and implementation over time.