| I propose "appliponents"---extensions to UML Class and Component Diagrams that will enable them to better accommodate extant, non-object-oriented, and legacy software. Appliponents are applicative, dataflow-oriented representations of subprograms (e.g., functions, procedures, methods, operations, operators, etc.) and of standalone executable programs (i.e., appliponents model executable software artifacts that features a single entry point). Appliponent decomposition diagrams (ADDS) are similar to notations used by Simulink, LabVIEW, and SoftWIRE, but appliponents feature a powerful mechanism for making what were traditionally implicit interfaces (global data and I/O) fully explicit through an unique orthogonal classification scheme. ADDS lend more rigorous software design discipline for projects relegated to the category of "glue coding". ADDs are therefore applicable to enterprise application integration (EAI) projects where the customer is unwilling to pay (1) for a complete, unified data model; (2) to adopt a standard data model; (3) for re-engineering extant software applications; or (4) for a common technical infrastructure. |
