Component-Based Software Development: Linear perspective of Software Engineering

The idea of Component-based software development (CBSD) is to build large software system by assembling a set of previously developed software components that can be independently deployed, configured and connected together. The basic foundation of this approach is that common parts should be written once rather writing them again and again from scratch and that common system should be assembled through reuse of these common parts. Component Based Software Engineering (CBSE) is a paradigm that handles efficiently the entire lifecycle of component-based products. It has given more attention on technologies related to design and implementation of software components and systems built from it. CBSE aims at constructing and designing systems using a pre-defined set of software components mainly created for reuse. CBSE embodies the ―the ̳buy, don‘t build‘ philosophy‖, that shifts the emphasis from programming software to composing software systems [1]. This requires established methodologies and tool support covering the entire component and system life cycle including organizational, technological, marketing, legal and other aspects. The new software development process is much different from the traditional approach; with time it has now been known that pure technologies alone are not enough. The life cycle and software engineering model of Component-based software development (CBSD) is much different from that of the traditional ones [2]. This paper makes an assessment as to how CBD has progressed fulfilling the promises with linear development stages covering different perspectives and challenges faced by this technology in Software engineering.