Perspectives, dimensions, and qualities
Software systems are not physical objects that we can easily see or touch. At their roots, they are instructions that are interpreted by a machine. So, we will need to visualize software systems in other ways.
The major purpose of visualizing software systems is to demonstrate how stakeholder concerns are addressed. There is usually a lengthy list of concerns. Each stakeholder usually has multiple concerns at various levels of abstraction. It is not possible to address all concerns from all angles in one visual representation.
The concept of View was introduced in the 1970s to describe software architecture. Since then, there have been numerous efforts to codify and standardize methods in describing software architecture. ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2022 is the current standard in specifying software architecture, by which the architectural concepts, structure, and language are defined.
In a View, only selected perspectives of software architecture...
