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SOFTWARE ENGINEERING PROCESSES Component Software: Beyond Object-Oriented Programming Clemens Szyperski with Dominik Gruntz and Stephen Murer. 2002. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley. 600 pages. ISBN 0-201-74572-0. (CSQE Body of Knowledge area: Software Engineering Processes)
It is somewhat telling that in the introduction to this book, the author states it is "not about reuse in general, but about the use of software components," which are defined as "executable units of independent production, acquisition, and deployment that can be composed into a functioning system" all of which require that a component "adheres to a particular component model and targets a particular component platform." Thus, it is not specifically about reuse from "arbitrary descriptions capturing the results of a design effort." The executable nature of the definition "rules out many software abstractions, such as type declarations, C macros, C++ templates, or Smalltalk blocks." And the reason for pursuing components, the author says, is that "all other engineering disciplines introduced components as they became mature," noting the introduction some 30 years ago of the idea of "software ICs," which "never truly...