Evaluation of an architectural conformance checking software service

Abstract

Static architectural conformance checking can be used to find architectural violations, cases where the implementation does not adhere to the architecture, and prevent architectural erosion. We implement a software service for automated conformance checking and investigate the effect this has on the number of architectural violations in software projects. The service is implemented using our heuristic-based approach to static architecture conformance checking of the Model-View-Controller pattern. The service is integrated in the source code management system of each project, so a report is generated every time the source code is modified. The service was evaluated in a field experiment that consisted of eight student projects. We found that the four projects that used the service produced significantly fewer violations compared to those that did not.