Towards a unified terminology for component-based development

Stefan Van Baelen¹^* - stefan.vanbaelen@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
David Urting¹ - david.urting@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
Werner Van Belle² - werner@yellowcouch.org, werner.van.belle@gmail.com
Viviane Jonckers³
Tom Holvoet² - tom.holvoet@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
Yolande Berbers¹ - yolande.berbers@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
Karel De Vlaminck¹ - karel.de.vlaminck@cs.kuleuven.ac.be

1- Computer Science Department (CS); Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL); Celestijnenlaan 200A; B-3001 Leuven; Belgium
2- Programming Technology Lab (PROG); Department of Computer Science (DINF); Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB); Pleinlaan 2; 1050 Brussel; Belgium
3- Lab for System and Software Engineering (LASSE); Department of Computer Science (DINF); Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB); Pleinlaan 2; 1050 Brussels; Belgium
* Corresponding author

Abstract: Component-oriented programming and component-based development have become rather mature software development approaches in the last years, with both quite good conceptual and technological support. In spite of this rapid growth, the concepts used when talking about components are not always well-defined and can lead to misconception, misunderstanding and confusion. Although the general, abstract definition of a component, as defined at WCOP96: A software component is a unit of composition with contractually specified interfaces and explicit context dependencies only. A software component can be deployed independently and is subject to composition by third parties. is widely accepted, a lot of confusion can arise when characteristics of components are described.

Keywords: definitions component based development
Reference: Stefan Van Baelen, David Urting, Werner Van Belle, Viviane Jonckers, Tom Holvoet, Yolande Berbers, Karel De Vlaminck; Towards a unified terminology for component-based development; Submitted to ECOOP 2000; June 2000
Files: 2000-ECOOP-WCOP.pdf

http://werner.yellowcouch.org/
mailto:werner@yellowcouch.org