Software Architect's Handbook

Design rationale for design reuse

Software architecture reuse involves creating multiple software applications using core assets, allowing architectural components to be reused across multiple software products. Organizations seek to take advantage of efficiencies that can be gained when reusing architectural components to build multiple software products as part of a software product line.

Capturing design rationale can facilitate successful architectural reuse. It can help designers understand what parts of the application can be reused. It may also provide some insight into where modifications can be made to a component in order to reuse it in the application. Due to the variation between software products, reusable components are typically ...