ArchStudio 3: Architecture-Driven Development

ArchStudio 3 is an open-source architecture-driven software development environment developed by the Institute for Software Research at the University of California, Irvine.

Development environments like Microsoft's Visual Studio are code-driven development environments. ArchStudio 3 focuses on software development from the perspective of software architecture--that is, a way of looking at systems composed from independent components and connectors that are linked together in one or more configurations. ArchStudio 3 supports a particular architectural style, the C2 architectural style.

From the official C2 site:

C2 is UCI's component- and message-based architectural style for constructing flexible and extensible software systems. A C2 architecture is a hierarchical network of concurrent components linked together by connectors (or message routing devices) in accordance with a set of style rules. C2 communication rules require that all communication between C2 components be achieved via message passing.

ArchStudio 3 is itself built in the C2 style and written in Java.

ArchStudio 3 is a research prototype and is almost constantly evolving. It currently is in an "alpha" state of development, with many components being experimental and pending completion. As individual ArchStudio components mature, they will be added.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 05:19 PM  Permalink