Packaging reusable components using patterns and hypermedia

Reuse is the key paradigm for increasing productivity and quality in large-scale software development. To become systematic, reuse needs supporting tools, and among these are the packaging tools. To reuse a complex component, it is necessary to understand its objectives, its architecture and how to use it. Therefore, a reusable component should be packaged with all the documentation necessary to enhance its comprehension and use. Hypermedia can help in making the documentation of a component more attractive. The technology of patterns-describing a problem, its solution and the context within which it works-can structure the data for packaging the component. This paper describes an architecture of a packaging tool for reusable components based on hypermedia and patterns technologies.