Categories for Component Level Design

Abstract

Several research problems are discussed, including communication mechanisms and the interface between components and the glue logic used to tie them together. A technique for engineering new component-level applications is presented. This technique divides an application into a set of tightly coupled parts each one of which can be placed in a specific category. Each of these categories has its own design methodology, most of which rely heavily on object oriented design. Once the features of an application have been divided into categories, they can be implemented as off- the-shelf components, new components, or as glue logic. The categorization scheme gives guidelines for the placement of each feature. The categorization scheme relies on the ability to pass pointers complex objects between components. The dangers of such practices are discussed, and suggestions are made for future research that might help mitigate these dangers.