ON THE STUDY OF SOFTWARE REUSE USING REUSABLE C++ COMPONENTS

Abstract

Software reuse has been studied for a long time. To the best of our knowledge, few guidelines and methodologies have been proposed for manufacturing reusable components. Also, not many actual or experimental studies have been conducted to substantiate the quality and productivity improvement of using reusable software components. In this article, we present a way (based on object interface) to manufacture reusable software components and propose a software construction method with guidelines for using designed reusable C++ components. Currently, we have developed about 130 reusable C++ components and have classified them into a manageable structure. We conducted a controlled experiment to substantiate the proposed software reuse approach in terms of software productivity and quality. Compared with the traditional design and implementation approach, the proposed construction approach demonstrates its advantages for both software productivity and software quality improvement. These advantages are evident from the software metrics generated in the experiment.