Adaptation of Software Components
George T. Heineman · 1999
One of the many difficulties in making Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE) a reality is the adaptation of software components that may be required when constructing applications from COTS components. We surveyed the literature to discover various approaches to component adaptation and evaluated these approaches against a set of requirements for component adaptation mechanisms. We also discuss differences between adaptation of software components and extension of object-oriented classes. 1. Introduction The closing sentence of a recent report on the current state of CBSE states that the growing use of external components will demand improvements in how components are documented, assembled, adapted, and customized [3]. This position paper addresses the issue of adaptation. We have argued in [5,6,7,8] that a true component marketplace will only exist when application builders can adapt software components to work within their application. For this position paper, we surveyed the...