TABLE OF CONTENTS JOHN PENIX
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, CA 94035, USA
john.penix@nasa.gov
PERRY ALEXANDER
The University of Kansas/ITTC, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
alex@ittc.ukans.edu
Abstract. REBOUND is a general framework for automating adaptation-based component reuse. The framework guides the selection of adaptation tactics based on the components available for reuse. Adaptation tactics are specified formally in terms of the relationship between the component to be adapted and the resulting adapted component. The tactic specifications are used to generate matching conditions for specification-based component retrieval, creating a retrieval for adaptation scenario. We use several examples to illustrate how the framework guides component and tactic selection and how basic tactics are composed to form more powerful tactics.
One of the promises of component-based software is the idea that components will be pre-packaged to be pulled off the shelf as needed. However, it is well known that there are many hidden costs in software reuse and that components very often must be adapted to be used. The need for adaptation in reuse is evident in the wide spread programming language support of data-type generalization and parameterization. These methods take a specialization approach to reuse, where a component is designed abstractly and specialized at reuse time (either statically or dynamically). While these specialization techniques have permitted the development of reusable code, they focus on implementation level artifacts. Therefore, these techniques cannot avoid the limitations of concrete component reuse as described by Biggerstaff [Biggerstaff, 1994]: the reuse of small generic components does...
