Hi all,

We are working to develop an Architecture Description Language (ADL) in Moose. The objective of the development is to define a language that allows to specify different components of an architecture so that these entities can be manipulated directly (analysis, visualization, etc). The architecture definition will be used to check rule conformance, for example. However, we would not want to restrict ourselves to any particular usage of the ADL.

Today, we have implemented a preliminary version of ADLFamix by implementing modules that actually contain MooseGroups. Based on these modules, we can now write Arki queries for rule-checkling, for example. Now, we are contemplating about the next step because different people implement different things in an ADL. Some describe rules that specify connectors that can exist between modules. However, this approach ties connectors to rules and we cannot define a connector without any rules associated. Connectors can be defined separately or these can also be inferred from Famix associations of the Famix entities contained in modules. Also, rules can be built into modules so that each one has its own repository (however, it is not always possible to associate a rule to any particular module).

The purpose of the mail is to get feedback from the people on the group about an ADL in Moose and its features. We are thinking in terms of, but not limited to:

1) fundamental features (modules, connectors, rules, ??)
2) objectives: rule checking, architecture inference (e.g. reconstructing plug-ins from java models in moose), ??
3) ??

thanx

Moosecians @ RMod