Towards component-based software engineering

Abstract

This paper presents a background and the state-of-the-art of component-based software engineering (CBSE hereafter), an emerging software technology aiming at developing high-quality software with lower cost. A number of research topics around CBSE are discussed which fit well into an upper-level software engineering course as student projects at small colleges. The paper starts with the rationales of CBSE after looking into software engineering practices for the past 30 years. The proposed solution involves the concept of highly reusable software components. Software development needs a revolutionary change: from writing code line by line to assembling pre-built, ready-tested components systematically. A component framework incorporating both syntax and semantics of reusable components is proposed. INTRODUCTION For the last 50 years, the technology for producing computer hardware has radically changed. At the early days, vacuum tubes and transistors were used. Since 1975, the integrated circuits (IC) and very large-scale integrated circuits (VLSI) have been used and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. A transistor is simply an on/off switch controlled by electricity. The integrated circuit combined dozens to hundreds of transistors into a single chip. A VLSI circuit then, is just millions of combinations of conductors, insulators, and switches manufactured in a single, small package. The integrated circuits (IC) and very large-scale integrated circuits (VLSI) make the basic building blocks from which faster and less expensive computers can be assembled (Figure 1). Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work or personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. VRST 2000, Seoul, Korea © ACM 2000 1-58113-316-2/00/10 . . .$5.00 Copyright © 2000 by the Consortium for Computing in Small Colleges. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the CCSC copyright n tice and the title of the publicatio and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Consortium for Computing in Small Colleges. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or specific permission. CCSC: Rocky Mountain Conference 183 Year Technology used in computers Relative performance/unit cost