Experience with a reverse architecture approach to increase understanding

Abstract

Reverse architecting code has been advocated to identify the current software architecture of existing software, to assess its quality, and to determine areas of improvement. At its most basic level, reverse architecting provides a way to determine what the current architecture is. We were interested in identifying the current architecture of an existing system, because it might aid in comprehension, particularly when existing architectural descriptions are outdated. To this end, we applied a known technique to a midsize system, and evaluated the practicality of the technique.