Architectural tactics identification in source code based on a semantic approach

Software systems are alive as long as they can be changed and used. Changing the source code without considering the consequences can lead to the architectural erosion of software systems. Architectural erosion gradually makes the system unchangeable and moves it towards deterioration. Architectural decisions in the source code are usually made using architectural tactics. These tactics are fine-grained decisions that are made to achieve a certain quality attribute. Recognizing these tactics in the source code, allows developers to change the code while knowing the implementation location of these decisions. This slows the architectural erosion process and delays the system's movement towards deterioration. Thus, this paper introduces a method based on semantic web for recognizing the architectural tactics presented in the source code. Based on this approach, the new concept of microtactic is introduced that increases the possibility of recognizing architectural tactics using a semantic web and ontological approach. The evaluation results show that this method in comparison with other similar methods recognizes the tactics with higher precision and quality.