APRImora: A semantic architecture for patterns reuse

Abstract

Software patterns are computing artifacts used to document knowledge that may be reused during software development process. There are several types of patterns, such as analysis, design, and architectural, among others. Design patterns are the most well known by designers, but many of them are described in books and scientific papers, a recurring way of documenting patterns that limits their reuse potential. Aiming to not only minimize this limitation but also provide ways of recovering contextualized knowledge in these patterns, the present paper presents the architecture APRImora, an extension based on Semantic Web of the Analysis Patterns Reuse Infrastructure (APRI). In this architecture, the patterns are documented by metadata defined as application profiles of the Dublin Core standard and stored in the RDF format, allowing them to be discovered by search engines. The APRImora architecture helps designers discover and reuse software patterns based on semantic relations, which favors their dissemination and reuse.