Questionnaire report on matter relating to software architecture evaluation

Abstract

Evidence of the relationship between software architecture including it's styles/patterns and quality attributes continues to grow, but largely remains an art rather than a science in terms of being able to predict a relevant architecture from (known) quality attributes. The aim of this paper is to point out those aspects that influence utilization of software architecture artefacts and their evaluation by software developers, and is part of a continuing study the results of which are intended to aid professional software/system developers with their decisions surrounding choice of (concrete) software architectures. The earlier part of the study produced an analysis report based on a survey titled “Questionnaire on matters relating to Software Patterns - 2012”. The survey was issued to software developers possessing more than 5 years experience, and produced significant results which, in turn, led to the need for this second survey. Ninety seven (97%) percent of the participants, from six different nations, answering the first questionnaire supported this further investigation.