Visual notations for software pattern languages
Glaice Kelly da Silva Quirino, Monalessa Perini Barcellos, Ricardo de Almeida Falbo · 2018
Reuse has been recognized as an important practice in software engineering. The use of patterns makes it easier to reuse successful solutions, speeds up the development process, and promotes the application of good practices. Related patterns can be organized in a Pattern Language (PL), which represents the patterns and their relations, and provides guidance on how to select, reuse and integrate them. Visual notations are often used to provide a graphical representation to PLs. Aiming to investigate how PLs related to software have been visually represented, we carried out a systematic mapping. We identified and analyzed 64 PLs. As a result, we noticed a lack of consensus on the elements that should be represented in a PL and the symbols used to represent them. Moreover, most PLs have ambiguous or inexpressive visual representations.