Everything about Software architecture description

🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path

1. Read the overview: Software architecture descriptionA 5-minute orientation
2. Skim a recent paper: Towards a Software Architecture Description for Tax ComplianceInfluential work since 2022
3. Pick up a classic book: System Specification And Design LanguagesThe most-reprinted book on the subject
4. Read the landmark paper: A classification and comparison framework for software architecture description languagesCited 1,239 times
5. Go sideways: IEEE 1471A closely related topic
6. Go sideways: TRAKA closely related topic

🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)

• A classification and comparison framework for software architecture description languages

  N. Medvidovic, R.N. Taylor · 2000 · IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering · 1,239 citations

• A comprehensive approach for the development of modular software architecture description languages

  Eric M. Dashofy, André van der Hoek, Richard N. Taylor · 2005 · ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology · 126 citations

• In practice: UML software architecture and design description

  C.F.J. Lange, M.R.V. Chaudron, J. Muskens · 2006 · IEEE Software · 114 citations

• Software architecture description in original software publications

  Tomasz Górski · 2026 · Software Impacts · 19 citations

• A Rewriting Semantics for a Software Architecture Description Language

  Alexandre Rademaker, Christiano Braga, Alexandre Sztajnberg · 2005 · Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science · 6 citations

• Software Architecture Description Revisited

  Nenad Medvidović, Richard N. Taylor, Eric M. Dashofy · 2025 · IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering · 5 citations

• Towards a Rewriting Semantics for a Software Architecture Description Language

  Christiano Braga, Alexandre Sztajnberg · 2004 · Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science · 5 citations

• A Review on Software/Systems Architecture Description for Autonomous Systems

  Layse Santos Souza, Fábio Gomes Rocha, Michel S. Soares · 2022 · Recent Advances in Computer Science and Communications · 4 citations

🆕 Influential since 2022

• Towards a Software Architecture Description for Tax Compliance

  Michael Dorner, Oliver Treidler, Tom-Eric Kunz · 2026 · Software · 1 citations

• COMPLEX INFORMATIONAL SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE DESCRIPTION AT EARLY STAGES OF REPEATABLE SOFTWARE SOLUTION REFINEMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION

  E. V. Filippov · 2022 · Vestnik komp'iuternykh i informatsionnykh tekhnologii · 1 citations

• MoSAL: a Tile Logic Based Architecture Description Language for Mobile Software Applications

  C. Bouanaka, F. Belala · 2024 · International Review on Computers and Software (IRECOS) · 0 citations

📚 Books worth reading

• System Specification And Design LanguagesTom J. Ka Mierski · 2011

Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.

🔗 Related topics

• IEEE 1471 IEEE 1471 is a superseded IEEE standard for describing the architecture of a "software-intensive system", also known as software architecture. In 2011…
• TRAK TRAK is a general architecture framework aimed at systems engineers. TRAK provides a set of triples and defines architecture view content to support description…
• View model A view model or viewpoints framework in systems engineering, software engineering, and enterprise engineering is a framework which defines a coherent set…
• ISO/IEC 42010 ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 Systems and software engineering — Architecture description is an international standard for architecture descriptions of systems and…
• Architecture framework The ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 Conceptual Model of Architecture Description defines the term architecture framework within systems engineering and software development…
• Software architecture Software architecture is the set of structures needed to reason about a software system and the discipline of creating such structures and systems. Each…
• Architecture description language Architecture description languages (ADLs) are used in several disciplines: system engineering, software engineering, and enterprise modelling and engineering…
• DUALLy DUALLy is an MDE framework to create interoperability among Architecture Description Languages (ADLs). It is developed at the Computer Science Department…