Synergy between Component-Based and Generative Approaches

Building software systems out of pre-fabricated components is a very attractive vision. Distributed Component Platforms (DCP) and their visual development environments bring this vision closer to reality than ever. At the same time, some experiences with component libraries warn us about potential problems that arise in case of software system families or systems that evolve over many years of changes. Indeed, implementation level components, when affected by many independent changes, tend to grow in both size and number, impeding reuse. In this paper, we analyze in detail this effect and propose a program construction environment, based on generative techniques, to help in customization and evolution of component-based systems. This solution allows us to reap benefits of DCPs during runtime and, at the same time, keep components under control during system construction and evolution. In the paper, we describe such a construction environment for component-based systems that we built wi...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1999
• Where: ESEC
• Authors: Stan Jarzabek, Peter Knauber
• Keywords: Component-based Systems, ESEC 1999, Generative Techniques, Software Engineering, Software System