A Foolish Consistency: Technical Challenges in Consistency Management

Finkelsteiin, Anthony

doi:10.1007/3-540-44469-6_1

Cited by 32 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…As Finkelstein [47] amusingly puts it: it is simply stating two contradictory things at two different moments in place or time, such as asserting that both the sky is blue and that the sky is not blue. Of course, inconsistency may not directly be a problem, until you try to perform an action in the real world upon the inconsistent assumptions -selecting a coat for instance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Together, these constraints and interests form the system's stakeholder concerns. The fact that software architecture and software engineering are involved with different actors, stakeholders, concerns, views and activities inherently results in inconsistency [47,113,116]. Finkelstein [47] argues that a major cause of inconsistency is the fact that multiple actors need to work together, each with different views, opinions and interpretations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The fact that software architecture and software engineering are involved with different actors, stakeholders, concerns, views and activities inherently results in inconsistency [47,113,116]. Finkelstein [47] argues that a major cause of inconsistency is the fact that multiple actors need to work together, each with different views, opinions and interpretations. For instance, different stakeholders involved in architecture have different languages or development strategies, address different stages of the development, have partly overlapping or non-overlapping areas of concern, and have different technical or economic objectives [113].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rather, inconsistency should be managed, that is, identifying inconsistency, leaving inconsistency where it is acceptable or desirable, and deferring or solving inconsistency when it is needed [47,116].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Consistent Inconsistency Management: A Concern-Driven Approach

Schenkhuizen

Werf

Jansen

et al. 2016

Software Architecture

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Inconsistency in software architecture is prevalent and arises inevitably due to the fact that software architecture is concerned with heterogeneous, multi-actor, multi-view and multi-model activities. Inconsistencies that remain undiscovered can be problematic.The software engineering research community has proposed different techniques and methods to support inconsistency management, especially focusing on model inconsistency. Traditional techniques such as logic-based approaches and model checking approaches have limited applicability in day to day practice due the presence of heterogeneous and informal models in software architecture, and the lack of documentation of design decisions and architectural knowledge. The earlier inconsistency is identified, the more cost-effective it is. That emphasizes the need for a method that identifies inconsistency in software architecture in an early stage, i.e. in the form of conflicting concerns and design decisions, as these give rise to inconsistency in software architecture.The aim of this study is to provide software architects with a sound and evaluated method that aids the architect with inconsistency management. This is done by answering the main research question: How can a software architect be supported in a structured way, to assist with inconsistency management in software architecture?Using a rigorous process, which includes the Method Association Approach, a literature study, and various in-depth expert interviews, the "Concern-Driven Inconsistency Management" (CDIM) method is developed. Central in the method is a workshop-approach involving stakeholders that enables the architect to assess conflicts between concerns and associated design decisions, in order to detect and manage inconsistency as early as possible.Two lightweight case studies and two in-depth interviews have demonstrated that the CDIM method is a flexible and applicable method, that can be easily tailored towards the inconsistency management needs of a software architect. Evaluation suggests that the CDIM method provides an effective way to explicate and structure the sometimes ad-hoc and implicit process of inconsistency management that software architects follow. The method also appears to be a good instrument for tradeoff analysis, guiding the architecture definition process.Concluding, it can be stated that the CDIM method can be used to support the software architect in a structured way with inconsistency management in software architecture, especially regarding intangible inconsistency in the form of conflicting design decisions and concerns. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of CDIM for tangible inconsistency could not be established.i Preface This master thesis is the result of roughly ten months of intensive research within the domain of software architecture. Software architecture can be seen as the linking pin between business and (information) technology. It is this role of software architecture that really has piqued my interest lately, hence it is a central element in this...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Consistent Inconsistency Management: A Concern-Driven Approach

Schenkhuizen

Werf

Jansen

et al. 2016

Software Architecture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Consistency management has become a research area of its own [21,13]. Several approaches have been presented for dealing with inconsistency in formal models.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Static consistency checking for distributed specifications

Nentwich

Emmerich

Finkelstein

Proceedings 16th Annual International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2001)

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Finding a Path to Model Consistency

Fombelle¹,

Blanc²,

Rioux³

et al. 2006

Model Driven Architecture – Foundations and Applications

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International audienceA core problem in Model Driven Engineering is model consistency achievement: all models must satisfy relationships constraining them. Active consistency techniques monitor and control models edition for preventing inconsistencies, e.g., using automatic errors correction. The main problem of these approaches is that strict enforcement of consistency narrows the modeler’s possibilities for exploring conflicting or tradeoff solutions; this is just what temporaries inconsistencies enable. In this article, we propose a hybrid approach capitalizing on active consistency characteristics while allowing the user to edit inconsistent models in a managed mode: at any moment we are able to propose a sequence of modelling operations that, when executed, make the model consistent. The solution consists in defining a set of automatons capturing a sufficient part of the model state space for managing any inconsistent situation. We illustrate this approach on a consistency relationship implied by the application of a security design pattern impacting both class and sequence diagrams of a UML2 model

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A Foolish Consistency: Technical Challenges in Consistency Management

Cited by 32 publications

References 4 publications

Consistent Inconsistency Management: A Concern-Driven Approach

Consistent Inconsistency Management: A Concern-Driven Approach

Static consistency checking for distributed specifications

Finding a Path to Model Consistency

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