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Component Based Development
This book introduces the key principles of component-based development (CBD) that need to be understood in order to adopt a component-based model of software development, and explains the benefits of adopting such an approach for an organization. It guides the reader through the program-planning process, and outlines the need-to-know issues in designing
and assembling components.
Software developers, architects and IT project managers will learn how to spring-board over to using a component-based approach, and discover the organizational issues affecting its adoption.
Key features of the book include:
Insights into component characteristics, and how they are defined and scoped
Consideration of the software architecture and infrastructure within which components can operate effectively
Practical advice on building and assembling components
A case study showing the highs and lows experienced by a finance company that is evolving its software development to a component-based approach, using CORBA, to introduce call centers and internet-based systems.
This book tries to answer the questions: What is it that we are trying to achieve with components? and How can we define and implement components so that we do achieve this? It is intended to provide an insight into the specific benefits of component-based development (CBD) and to convey the conceptual issues that must be fully understood in order to be successful with CBD.
It aims to:
explain the rationale for CBD and the key concepts behind it;
outline an approach to program planning that should significantly improve the effectiveness of CBD;
provide guidance on introducing a component-based approach into the organization;
provide an understanding of the issues involved in the design and assembly of components, including strategies for scoping components and for managing their assembly.
It is left to other books in the field to provide technical insights into J2EE, .NET, etc. or to provide a full method that would necessarily have a heavy emphasis on modeling techniques. Instead, it is assumed that you will use a model-based development method (preferably OO or at least hybrid). This assumption makes it possible to concentrate in this book on issues that are specific to adopting a component-based approach, rather than discussing software development techniques that are already widely understood.
CBD is usually regarded as principally relevant to new software development. However, software development cannot take place in a vacuum. It must take account of the current application portfolio and existing software infrastructure of the organization. It is for this reason that this book pays particular attentionto program planning. In this book, CBD and integration with existing systems are seen as natural partners. Software development is seen as a process of gradual migration forwards from an existing application portfolio to an improved (and more component-based) application portfolio. CBD provides a means of achieving this gradual improvement, while a component-based vision of how the application portfolio could ultimately look provides guidance as to how to move it forwards.
Preface
Pt. 1 Introduction to component-based development
1 Component-based development: attempting to manage chaos
2 What are components?
3 Putting components in perspective
Pt. 2 The planning process
4 Positioning components within the organization
5 Software architecture and infrastructure
6 Defining components
7 Putting component-based development into practice
8 Pragmatics of program planning
9 Organization for component-based development
Pt. 3 Building and assembling components
10 Acquiring components
11 Designing components
12 Assembling components
13 Testing, certification, and maintaining a component catalog
Pt. 4 A brief case study
14 Managing chaos with components
Glossary
References
Index
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