System development through the reuse of existing components

The problems of successful software reuse have occupied the time of many researchers over the last ten years. The authors describe a field of research carried out at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, during the Alvey-funded Eclipse project. They describe the component description language developed to support reuse by modelling the interfaces that exist between related software components. Support for the language is given in the form of a graphical representation, which it is believed will help speed up system development