Conference turris::languages

377.0. "Component-Oriented Software Development" by STAR::PRAETORIUS (I have faith in questioning) Thu May 19 1994 10:03

[I though this was one the more interesting CS-related web pages I've
 run across in awhile.
 from http://cui_www.unige.ch/OSG/Overview/cosd-S-1.html#S-1 ]

Component-Oriented Software Development
***************************************

Introduction
************

Object-oriented programming techniques promote a new approach
to software engineering in which reliable, open applications can be
largely constructed, rather than programmed, by reusing
"frameworks" [3] of plug-compatible software components. Although
the dream of a components- based software industry is very old 
[9], only now does it appear that we are close to realizing the
dream. The reason for this is twofold:

 o Modern applications are increasingly open in terms of
   topology, platform and evolution, and so the need for a
   component-oriented approach to development is even more
   acute than in the past; 
 o Objects provide an organizational paradigm for decomposing
   large applications into cooperating objects as well as a reuse
   paradigm for composing applications from pre-packaged
   software components. 

Despite the contributions of object-oriented technology, there are
several open research problems that must be resolved to reach the
goal of effective component-oriented development. First,
object-oriented mechanisms for composition and reuse must be
cleanly integrated with other features, such as concurrency,
persistence and distribution. Second, effective reuse of software
presupposes the existence of tools to support the organisation and
retrieval of components according to application requirements and
the interactive construction of running applications from
components. Third, the design of reusable frameworks is an
iterative, evolutionary process, so it is necessary to manage
software and software information in such a way that designs and
implementations can evolve gracefully.

Finally, present object-oriented methodologies do not explicitly
address the design of reusable frameworks. Not only the languages
and tools, but the economics, methods and culture of software
development must ultimately adapt to a new evolutionary software
life-cycle if we are to realize the benefits of large-scale software
reuse [2][17].

We shall outline a series of ongoing research projects at the
University of Geneva that address component-oriented software
development at the levels of languages, tools and frameworks, in
particular, (1) the integration of object-oriented language features
that support software composition with features concerned with
other issues, like concurrency, (2) application development tools to
support composition and reuse, and (3) the development of reusable
application frameworks, specifically in the domain of multimedia
applications.

      

This document was translated by ms2html (v 1.1 30/6/93).

OMN 

Sounds interesting, I agree!  Can you give me a pointer to how to
obtain the rest of the paper?

- Jan

PS: If obtaining the rest involves the mysterious source:

>>  http://cui_www.unige.ch/OSG/Overview/cosd-S-1.html#S-1

can you please explain how to access this file using good ol'VMS?

re .1
    
>PS: If obtaining the rest involves the mysterious source:
>
>>  http://cui_www.unige.ch/OSG/Overview/cosd-S-1.html#S-1
>
>can you please explain how to access this file using good ol'VMS?

    Info provided offline.

     Since the format of URLs (e.g. foo://bar.baz/filename) has not yet
become common knowledge, this note'll serve as a pointer to where to
find out info on URLs.