Empirical study on the effect of crossover in genetic software architecture synthesis

In our previous work, we have presented a method for genetically synthesizing software architecture design. Synthesis begins with a responsibility dependency graph and domain model for a system, and results in a full architecture proposal through the application of design patterns and architectural styles. In this paper, we study the method of reproduction in the genetic algorithm. More specifically, we try to find out whether sexual or asexual method of reproduction should be used. We hypothesize that although sexual reproduction method is so favored among various species of animals and plants, asexual reproduction is more natural in the case of genetic synthesis of software architecture. We search for empirical confirmation to our hypothesis by performing tests on two sample systems.