reuse?

Abstract: Reuse of software has the potential to decrease costs and development time at the same time as software quality is increased – i.e. solve the infamous “software crisis”. In this paper, we investigate the notion of “frameworks ” and discuss, in a general manner, the problems of reuse within frameworks. The term “framework ” is in the paper used in a very broad sense: our argumentation is applicable on component frameworks (as in chapters 17 and 18 of the book), but also on object-oriented frameworks, software architectures; indeed, any software environment or abstraction can be regarded a framework (such as operating systems and programming languages). Frameworks have proven to evolve, and we argue about the reasons for this and find that they will continue to do so. Based on a literature survey and our discussion on framework evolution, we outline answers to how a framework should be designed to facilitate reuse and how a component, developed within a framework, should be designed to become as reusable and long-lasting as possible. We apply our discussion to chapters 17 and 18 of the book, evaluating their prospects of facilitating reuse.