Software Engineering: Reflections on an Evolving Discipline

This paper analyzes Software Architecture, defining it and describing the evolution of this field and its role in software engineering. In addition, it covers key concepts of a software architecture course, steps to pursue an architectural thinking, the elements of organizational architecture maturity and emerging trends and issues such as: Architecture evolution, Architecture conformance, Frameworks, platforms, and ecologies, and Self-Adaptive Systems. Further we examine how software engineering has matured over the past two decades (and the role that software architecture has played in this process), the requirements of architectural thinking (at both technical and organizational levels), the importance for an organization to have mature architectural practices and the existence of important new trends that are reshaping the way software architecture is practiced.