Formal definition of the Chiron-2 software architectural style
Nenad Medvidović · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · 1995
The Chiron-2 style is a new software architectural style designed to support the particular needs of applications with a graphical user interface aspect. Several experimental systems have been built to demonstrate its intended goals. The conceptual architectures of those systems were depicted by "boxes and arrows." This notation is too ambiguous and a more formal definition is needed. This paper presents a formal specification of the C2 style. In particular, C2 components and connectors, their rules of composition, and communication between them are defined. This definition is evaluated with a set of independently devised requirements. Its utility and future uses are discussed. 1 Introduction Software architectural styles are key design idioms. Unix's pipe-and-filter style is more than twenty years old; blackboard architectures have long been common in AI applications. User interface software has typically made use of two run-time architectures: the client-server style and the call-ba...