The Design of a Complex Software System with Archjava

Software development by assembling components represents a very promising way for the design of high quality software at lower costs. The assembly is specified by the Architecture Description Languages (ADL). ArchJava is an ADL that is characterized by its independence from the application domain and its close position to the implementation level, thus making it very attractive for practitioners. Until now, ArchJava was used to illustrate its characteristics either on simple cases, or for the software specification at a high level of abstraction. In this study we present the design of a complex software system by assembling components using ArchJava and following a top down design process. This experience underlines the power of design by assembling components for the fast realization of complex software system. It also emphasizes some deficiencies of ArchJava in the specification of some concepts related to the design by assembling components, the design of the GUI and data modeling.