Abstract:
Although there are many formal representations of architecture,
actually determining what an architecture should be when systems
are merged is largely based on context and human intuition. The goal of
this paper is to find a mathematical model which supports this context
and determines the architecture when the systems have been merged. A
category of architectural models is presented, and the pushout in this
category provides the unique minimal merger of two architectures by
way of an abstraction of the desired intersection. We conclude by identifying
deeper aspects of architectural type which should be incorporated
into this theory, and how the whole model might be automated.
