Software components selection using the fuzzy set theory

In this paper, we addressed a problem on which depends closely the success of developing component-based applications. The problem consists in how are selected appropriate software components from several alternatives. The paper presents a solution in which we used the concept of fuzzy sets. The proposed solution consists in creating a fuzzy set of suitable components in which each component is associated with a degree of membership that presents the degree of appropriateness of the component with required specifications. To measure the membership degrees of components, we proposed a fuzzy multidimensional measure based on appropriateness indicators which each one reflects a particular aspect of appropriateness. Afterwards, we presented possibilities of using agents to realize a distributed implementation of the proposed approach.