A Pattern Language for Documenting Software Architectures

The process of creating the architecture of a software system results in a documentation, which is recognized as a key artifact for stakeholder communication, early analysis of the system, support for quality attributes and trouble-free maintenance. The problem of software architecture documentation remains to a large extent unsolved; however the past few years, significant advances have been made in the field from research academic and industrial centers. This paper introduces an approach for recording the results that have been achieved hitherto in the field of documenting software architectures, by formatting them in the shape of patterns. We aim at assembling knowledge and experience in the field from industry and academia, with respect to the few issues that the community has reached consensus. Furthermore, by codifying this knowledge and experience in the form of patterns, we hope for a wider dissemination of architectural documentation concepts and practices to the community and thus a further advance of the field.