Reusability-the major promise and challenge of the object oriented approach

The concept of interchangeable parts made possible the mass production industries of today, bringing the cost of manufactured goods down by orders of magnitude, with consequent effects; we have come to regard as the industrial revolution. So far this paradigm has not been widely applied in the software field. Object oriented programming promises the advantages of interchangeable parts. Many of the necessary preconditions for the economically viable development of reusable software have now been met. Much remains to be done, however, to release this potential. The author examines reusability from different viewpoints: domains (analysis, design, prototyping, implementation, verification, maintenance and reuse); levels (systems, sub-systems, lightweight-processes); areas (user interfacing, storage structures, databases, and distributed systems); people; and financial and administrative