Reusable Object-Oriented Design

Software design is a difficult creative task learnt from long experience. Reusable object-oriented design aims to describe and classify designs and design fragments so that designers may learn from other peoples' experience. Thus, it provides leverage for the design process. This paper surveys the field, discussing software architectures, application frameworks, design patterns, and the design of class libraries. The field is young with many open problems that still need to be researched. 1 Introduction The drive for productivity in the software industry is forcing major changes in the ways that software development and maintenance are being done. Traditionally, over 80% of total expenditure is directed to software maintenance (including corrective, adaptive, and perfective maintenance), and about 60-70% of the effort of maintenance is directed towards understanding the software (requirements, architecture, design, and code). Hence, lowering the effort and costs of maintenance and und..