Architecture Description Language
Different communities use the term architecture description language. Some important communities are the system engineering community, the software engineering community and the enterprise modelling and engineering community
In the system engineering community, an Architecture Description Language (ADL) is a language and/or conceptual model used to describe and represent system architectures.
In the software engineering community, an Architecture Description Language (ADL) is a computer language used to describe and represent software architectures. This means in case of technical architecture, the architecture must be communicated to software developers. With functional architecture, the software architecture is communicated with stakeholders and enterprise engineers. By the software engineering community several ADLs have been developed, such as Acme (developed by CMU), AADL (standardized by SAE), C2 (developed by UCI), Darwin (developed by Imperial College London), and Wright (developed by CMU).
ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010, Systems and software engineering — Architecture description, defines Architecture Description Language as any form of expression for use in architecture descriptions and specifies minimum requirements on ADLs.
The enterprise modelling and engineering community have also developed architecture description languages catered for at the enterprise level. Examples include ArchiMate (now an Open Group standard), DEMO, ABACUS (developed by the University of Technology, Sydney) etc. These languages do not necessarily refer to software components, etc. Most of them, however, refer to an application architecture as the architecture that is communicated to the software engineers.
Most of the writing below refers primarily to the perspective from the software engineering community.
Read more about Architecture Description Language: Introduction, Characteristics, Common Concepts of Architecture, Architecture Vs. Design, Examples, Approaches To Architecture, Conclusion
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