Although a few participants were forced to arrive late due to bad weather conditions on the US East Coast, the Fourth International Software Architecture Workshop (ISAW-4) was a successful continuation of its previous incarnations. Contrary to previous years, the audience was intentionally limited to forty-five participants, creating a setting that promoted active discussion among all participants. (Or was that caused by these remarkable chairs that forced everybody to sit upright?).

Ranging in background from academia, research labs, management, and consulting to those "down in the trenches", this selective group spent two days actively discussing the latest advances and problems in software architecture. To guide the discussions, the workshop was divided into eight sessions that covered a broad range of topics: product line architectures, representations, tools & metrics, roles, evaluation, ubiquitous computing, dynamism, and evolution.

Most attention seemed to shine on the topics of product line architectures (which are becoming more and more a driving force in software development), the various roles of the software architect (which are far broader than just high-level design), and architectural dynamism (which is a topic not very well understood just yet). As with every workshop, the group managed to jump head first into the infamous terminology pitfall that we all know so well. But, it (amazingly!) managed to climb out of the pitfall with a windy yet useful discussion that illustrated some definite shortcomings in the current knowledge base on dynamic architectures.

All in all, the workshop clearly indicated that progress has been made, but that much more progress still remains to be made as architectures are coming into more widespread use.