A Theory about the Structure of GTSEs

Managing complexity is a fundamental goal of software engineering. One of the core techniques that has been successful in practice is that which separate concerns, especially variants of architectural abstractions called components and connectors. We present and illustrate a theory about the general structure of General Theories of Software Engineering (GTSE) - namely, that they should be organized as components and connectors to distinguish conceptually distinct general theory elements and their inter-relationships and interdependencies. Doing so, we argue, separates concerns that should be distinct and not conflated, thereby increasing the value of GTSE efforts.