An architecture-driven, business-specific, and component-based approach to software engineering

The paper describes an approach to software reuse which is under development and evaluation at Andersen Consulting. Instead of restricting reuse to just code, we are exploring reuse of architectures that include component interfaces, interconnections between components, and platform configuration. The approach assumes that first a desired architecture is chosen and tailored according to the constraints at hand. Then, appropriate components are retrieved from a repository, subjected to restricted modifications if necessary and “glued” together following the architectural guidelines. Finally, a version of a system is automatically packaged from the selected components and the architectural specifications. The paper presents the approach and some initial experiments in the design of an interface specification language and an environment in which modules can be interconnected and their interface specifications used to determining the integrity of the connections