Quantifying software architecture quality report on the first international workshop on software architecture metrics

Abstract

Architects of complex software systems face the challenge of how best to assess the achievement of quality attributes and other key drivers, how to reveal issues and risks early, and how to make decisions about architecture improvement. Software architecture quality has a large impact on this effort, but it is usually not assessed with quantitative measures. As the pace of software delivery and technology churn increases, organizations need guidance on how to meet the business goals of their software. There is an increasing need to provide ongoing insight into the quality of the system being developed. Additionally, it is highly desirable to improve feedback between development and deployment through measurable means for intrinsic quality, value, and cost. There is increasing attention to fields such as software analytics and empirical software engineering and measurement that can provide the theory, tooling, or inspiration to develop measurement and analysis frameworks for software architecture. This paper reports on the results of the First International Workshop on Software Architecture Metrics, where participants discussed challenges and opportunities in quantifying software architecture quality.