ArchJava

This paper describes ArchJava, which is a backwards compatible extension to Java code used for integrating software architecture implementations into Java implementation code. Communication integrity and seamless integration of architecture and implementation are explained to be the main contributions of this work. I feel that one of the most important aspects of this work is the ability to ensure that both architecture and code are kept consistent as they evolve. A reasonably good attempt at program understanding has been made in this paper even with all the limitations specified.

The paper considers the length of code to be a good indicator of complexity of the underlying program and even though there could be other factors as well, the methodology adopted to evaluate the effectiveness of ArchJava is sound. As I am unfamiliar with this topic, I cannot comment on whether ArchJava has been successfully implemented on larger pieces of code. Among the advantages, I feel that the most important ones are the ability to explicitly list the method call communication between components which makes it complete. On the other end of the scale, even though the task of rewriting a program to make use of ArchJava is not shown to be complicated for the system that they have considered, it cannot be generalized everywhere. I feel that rather than working across a wide variety of programs across the board, it is too restrictive and focuses on projects who adhere to a standard set of specifications.