Using Types to Enforce Architectural Structure

Abstract

The right software architecture is critical to achieving essential quality attributes, but these qualities are only realized if the program as implemented conforms to its intended architecture. Previous techniques for enforcing architecture are either unsound or place significant limitations on either architectural design or on implementation techniques. This paper presents the first system to statically enforce complete structural conformance between a rich, dynamic architectural description and object-oriented implementation code. We extend previous work to (1) explain what full structural conformance means in an object-oriented setting, and (2) enforce architectural structure in the presence of shared data. We show that the resulting system can express and enforce important structural constraints of an architecture, while still supporting key object-oriented implementation techniques. As a result of our conformance property, developers can be assured that their intended architecture is realized in code, so the system will exhibit the desired quality attributes.