WicsaWikiWANParty:WhyRecover
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Under what circumstances do we need to recover or reconstruct software architecture? What drives this?
- legacy: some software is already in use and modified for decades. Software architecture ( if ever made) is lost. e.g. Telephone exchange SW, Administrative SW in insurance companies.
- check: whether SW designers understood the SW architecture: Do a SW arch reconstruction from the resulting code and check with the original architecture.
The first reason is important, the second is not. If the architecture is already documented then
the fastest way to find out whether the documentation is accurate is to read it and then to study the software. If the architecture is accurate then the software will make sense. if the architecture is not accurate then it won't.
In my experience, it is rare for software to have good architecture description. Thus, most legacy software does not have good architecture description. If you want it then you will have to create it. -RalphJohnson
