Paper Info
Title
Patterns for Documenting Frameworks - Part II
Abstract
Good design and implementation are necessary but not sufficient pre-requisites for the successful reuse of object-oriented frameworks. Although not always recognized, good documentation is crucial for effective framework reuse and comes with many issues. Defining and writing good quality documentation for a framework is often hard, costly, and tiresome, especially when not aware of its key problems and the best ways to address them. This document presents patterns from a set of related patterns that describe proven solutions to recurrent problems of documenting object-oriented frameworks. The overall pattern language they belong aims at helping non-experts on cost-effectively documenting object-oriented frameworks. The patterns here presented complement the subset of artefact patterns presented at VikingPLoP'2005 and EuroPLoP'2006 and address the problems of describing the customization points of the framework and how such customization is supported, respectively the patterns "CUSTOMIZATION POINTS" and "DESIGN INTERNALS". Object-oriented frameworks are a powerful technique for large-scale reuse capable of delivering high levels of design and code reuse. As software systems evolve in complexity, object-oriented frameworks are increasingly becoming more important in many kinds of applications, new domains, and different contexts: industry, academia, and single organizations. Although frameworks promise higher development productivity, shorter time-to- market, and higher quality, these benefits are gained only over time and require up-front investments. Before being able to use a framework successfully, users usually need to spend a lot of effort on understanding its underlying architecture and design principles, and on learning how to customize it, which together imply a steep learning curve. This effort can be significantly reduced with good documentation and training material. This paper contributes two patterns to a pattern language that focuses on problems of documenting frameworks (1)(2)(3), some of the several technical, organizational, and managerial issues that must be managed in order to employ frameworks effectively. In addition to complex software systems, frameworks are designed to be easy to reuse and this adds extra needs from the point of view of documentation. The pattern language comprises a set of interdependent patterns that aim to help developers and technical writers become aware of the problems that they will typically face when documenting object-oriented frameworks. The patterns were mined from existing literature, lessons learned, and expertise on documenting frameworks, based on a previous compilation of the authors on the topic (4).
Year
Venue
Keywords
2006
EuroPLoP
learning curve,pattern language,cost effectiveness,software systems
Field
DocType
Citations 
Object-oriented design,Systems engineering,Computer science,Management science
Conference
4
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.44
14
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Ademar Aguiar115427.13
Gabriel David213111.89