Programs = data + algorithms + architecture: Consequences for interactive software engineering

Abstract

This article analyses the relationships between software architecture, programming languages and interactive systems. It proposes to consider that languages, like user interface tools, implement architecture styles or patterns aimed at particular stakeholders and scenarios. It lists architecture issues in interactive software that would be best resolved at the language level, in that conflicting patterns are currently proposed by languages and user interface tools, because of differences in target scenarios. Among these issues are the contra-variance of reuse and control, new scenarios of software reuse, the architecture-induced concurrency, and the multiplicity of hierarchies. The article then proposes a research agenda to address that problem, including a requirement-and scenario-oriented deconstruction of programming languages to understand which of the original requirements still hold and which are not fully adapted to interactive systems. © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.