Generate and test as a software architecture design approach

In the last several years, the concept of a design decision has become important in the software architecture design community. A design decision begins with an issue and then focuses on the alternative solutions and the rationale for these solutions. The question of where the issues come from is not usually addressed within this approach. In this paper, we present a "generate and test" approach to design. If the design process is viewed as a generate and test process, then the set of questions that must be answered include where does the initial hypothesis come from, what are our test cases for any hypothesis, and how is the next hypothesis generated.