A Framework for Evaluating Software Environments that Support Design Reuse

A practical software reuse environment must provide user-friendly facilities for the creation, collection, storage, retrieval, modification , and representation of information for reuse purposes. To evaluate the capabilities and features of such a practical reuse environment, a "checklist." "benchmark," or a "framework" is needed for evaluation puqJoses. We introduce such a framework. This framework includes ten properties or features that we believe are essential for any design-reuse environment. We use the framework to assess the capabilities of three software reuse environments developed at major European and North American institutions. Further research ideas related to reusing other design components are also identified