A case study: demands on component-based development

ABSTRACT

Building software systems with reusable components brings many advantages. The development becomes more efficient, the realibility of the products is enhanced, and the maintenance requirement is significantly reduced. Designing, developing and maintaining components for reuse is, however, a very complex process which places high requirements not only for the component functionality and flexibility, but also for the development organization. In this paper we discuss the different levels of component reuse, and certain aspects of component development, such as component generality and efficiency, compatibility problems, the demands on development environment, maintenance, etc. The evolution of requirements for products generates new requirements for components, if components are not enough general and mature. This dynamism determines the component life cycle where the component first reaches its stability and later degenerates in an asset that is difficult to use, difficult to adapt and maintain. When reaching this stage, the component becomes an obstacle for efficient reuse and should be replaced. Questions related to use of standard and de-facto standard components are addressed specifically. As an illustration of reuse issues, we present a successful implementation of a component-based system which is widely used for industrial process control.

REFERENCES

• 1: Advant, ABB Automation Products, http://www.advantocs.com
• 2: I. Sommerville, Software engineering (2nd ed.), Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1985
• 3: CORBA, http://www.corba.org
• 4: International Electrotechnical Commission (1992), Programmable Controllers Part 3, Programming Languages, IEC 1131-3, IEC Geneva.
• 5: Austern M., Generic Programming and the STL, Addison-Wesely, 1999
• 6: OPC Foundation, http://www.opcfoundation.org
• 7: Szyperski C., Component Software, Addison Wesely, 1999
• 8: Ivica Crnkovic, Experience with Change-Oriented SCM Tools, Proceedings of the SCM-7 Workshop on System Configuration Management, p.222-234, May 18-19, 1997
• 9: Ivica Crnkovic , Per Willför, Change Measurements in an SCM Process, Proceedings of the SCM-8 Symposium on System Configuration Management, p.26-32, July 20-21, 1998
• 10: Walter F. Tichy, RCS—a system for version control, Software—Practice & Experience, v.15 n.7, p.637-654, July 1985 [doi>10.1002/spe.4380150703]
• 11: Mira Kajko-Mattsson, Maintenance at ABB (I): Software Problem Administration Processes (The State of Practice), Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, p.167, August 30-September 03, 1999
• 12: Mira Kajko-Mattsson, Maintenance at ABB (II): Change Execution Processes, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, p.307, August 30-September 03, 1999
• 13: Aoyama M.: New Age of Software Development: How Component-Based Software Engineering Changes the Way of Software Development, 1998 International Workshop on CBSE
• 14: Josefsson M., Oskarsson ~., Programvarukomponenter i praktiken - att k~pa tid och prestera mer, Report from Sveriges Verkstadsindustrier 1999, in Swedish
• 15: Magnus Larsson , Ivica Crnkovic, New Challenges for Configuration Management, Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on System Configuration Management, p.232-243, September 05-07, 1999
• 16: Box D., Essential COM, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0- 201-63446-5
• 17: David Rine , Nader Nada , Khaled Jaber, Using adapters to reduce interaction complexity in reusable component-based software development, Proceedings of the 1999 symposium on Software reusability, p.37-43, May 21-23, 1999, Los Angeles, California, United States [doi>10.1145/303008.303018]
• 18: Dorothy McKinney, Impact of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software on the interface between systems and software engineering, Proceedings of the 21st international conference on Software engineering, p.627-628, May 16-22, 1999, Los Angeles, California, United States
• 19: Bass L. et al., Third Product Line Practice Report, Technical Report CMU/SEI-99-TR-003, Software Engineering Institute, March 1999.
• 20: Jan Bosch, Product-line architectures in industry: a case study, Proceedings of the 21st international conference on Software engineering, p.544-554, May 16-22, 1999, Los Angeles, California, United States

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.3 Software Management
          Subjects: Software development

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

General Terms:
Design, Management, Performance, Theory

Keywords:
architecture, component-based development, development environment, reuse, standard components