Eighth IEEE International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems (ICECCS'02)
Composability for Software Components: An Approach Based on the Whole-Part Theory
Greenbelt, Maryland
December 02-December 04
ISBN: 0-7695-1757-9
Software components differ from ordinary software parts in the sense that they own composition potentialities, commonly named composability or compositionality. The lack of influence on Component- Based Software Engineering (CBSE),of reputable and recognized theories,somehow precludes for having comprehensive views and contributions on what composability really is. This paper is grounded on the Whole-Part theory, broadly used in other domains as ontology,knowledge engineering,and more recently, object modeling. However, the use of this theory in CBSE remains low. We on purpose formalize a special kind of composability for components operating on the same deployment node. The foundation of our approach is encapsulation of sub-components by components, emergent and resultant properties for components with regard to their sub-components and finally, state and lifetime dependencies. We lay down a general-purpose framework for designing components that truly possess composition potentialities, based on the fact that relationships between components and sub-components are highly coercive.