Chapter 1. Overview of the ADML DTD

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ADML Introduction and Background

Contents:
Purpose and Scope
Revision and Maintenance Policy

This chapter offers a high-level overview of ADML's purpose and scope and describes its revision and maintenance policy.

1.1 Purpose and Scope

The ADML DTD defines structural and content-based XML markup for computer software architectures. ADML is based on Acme a software architecture description language (ADL) developed by Carnegie Mellon University's ABLE project. Acme was chosen as the basis for ADML because of Acme's inherent capability as an ADL interchanges language. In addition, Acme is also useful as a architecture description language. It provides the essential set of architectural elements needed by many applications.

In using Acme as the foundation, ADML development will be able to extend its definition to include other architectural elements which may be needed by a larger set of applications. However, ADML models will still be able to take advantage of toolkits for design and analysis developed for Acme descriptions.

Beyond notation, ADML development intends to service a wider set of needs placed on industrial grade modeling tools. These needs can be simply summarized by the following list:

• Representation - a model must be captured in a format which insures "shelf life" and a format usable by multiple tools.
• Views - a model must have the ability to "morph" other views, including logical, physical, and organization views.
• Collaboration - a model must have the ability to be partitioned across geograhically dispersed work groups.
• Repository - a model must have fine-grained persistence.

XML is an excellent format for providing these additional capabilities. See The Merit of XML as an Architecture Description Language Meta-Language for a more detail description of XML's use as a format for an architectural description language.

Because ADML is a large DTD, it is quite common for organizations to use only a subset of its markup model. Similarly, because individual organizations often have specific needs that an industry DTD cannot reflect, many users also extend ADML's markup model. As a result, we expect that ADML will evolve as it is applied to more models, as more XML tools come into use, and as users gain more experience in working with it. We are interested in your use of the ADML DTD and welcome your comments: mailto:ogspecs@opengroup.org.

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