Software Architecture

The software architecture course offers students a chance to learn and experience the concepts of designing, modeling, analyzing and evaluating software design and software architectures. Furthermore, the course provides students with a discussion forum in which recent articles in the area of software architecture are presented and discussed. The course also features a number of guest lectures to show the state-of-the-art of software architecture in industry.

Topics covered by this course are: fundamentals of software architectures, modeling and designing software architectures, architectural patterns and styles, architecture viewpoints and perspectives, the role of the software architect, analyzing and evaluating software architectures, component and plug-in frameworks, software product lines, service oriented architectures, code quality, technical debt, refactoring, software architecture evolution, and architecture modernization.

The course includes extensive labwork in groups of four. Each group is tasked to develop the architecture for a system of choice, covering problem analysis, a developed architecture, and a proof-of-concept implementation, and to describe these in written reports.