focus Patterns to Capture
Neil B. Harrison, Uwe Zdun · 2007
can significantly disrupt the system when deci-sions made later, during subsequent develop-ment iterations, conflict with the original archi-tectural decisions.Researchers are investigating various meth-ods and tools to help software architects effec-tively document their decisions. However, suchtools’ utility has yet to be fully validated. Doc-umenting architectural decisions thus remainsdifficult and we continue to lose important information. Architecture patterns address these docu-mentation challenges by capturing structuraland behavioral information and encouragingarchitects to reflect on decisions in a way thatdoesn’t interfere with the natural architecturaldesign process. Architecture patterns are easyto use, giving developers a rich set of infor-mation about rationale, consequences, and re-lated decisions. Essentially, they offer reusableknowledge for the architect’s toolkit. Here, wediscuss the relation between patterns and deci-sion making and describe how architects canuse patterns to capture certain architectural de-cisions in practice.