On component composition languages

The benefits of software component composition are today widely accepted. However, component oriented software development is not yet as widespread as its multiple advantages may suggest. This is so in spite of the maturity reached by several component models (Microsoft’s COM, JavaBeans, OMG’s CORBA), and their general acceptance by large communities of developers. Thus, while components are being “used ” in software development, the development process itself is not fully component–oriented. One major roadblock limiting the adoption of a component–oriented development process is the lack of viable component composition languages. There are, however, major costs associated with the adoption of a new language, and reducing adoption costs must be a major objective in the development of a component composition language. In this paper we propose a list of requirements for a successful component composition language, in which we attempt to capture the needs of providing first class support for composition operations and assuring seamless integration into existing development environments. Next, we identify the problems associated with the design of a language meeting these requirements, and present a practical approach to deal with them