Mechanisms of component‐oriented software development

Componentware is a new paradigm in software development that is based on the concept of a software component. Software components are self‐contained, immutable units of software which can be distributed over large networks or even over the Internet. The distribution of software components requires new, Internet‐based search and retrieval mechanisms. A set of collaborating software components is called componentware. We discuss the architectural requirements and mechanisms of componentware, a technical realisation of a componentware architecture, and identify obstacles in building componentware. Finally, we propose possible solutions for the realisation of componentware and componentware architectures.