Extracting program structure for packaging in a component-based environment

Abstract

The development of a large-scale software application naturally lends itself to a top-down development process where the problem is divided into smaller problems that are dispersed among multiple people or teams. Once these sub-problems have been solved, the software components or modules implementing these solutions are integrated into the whole for a final solution. In a component-based environment, large applications are constructed by combining software components in a variety of ways. In such an environment, the components may be implemented in different languages and be distributed across different machines. Alternately, these modules may be different parts of a program running in a single address space. These options (and the many options in between) require different techniques for integration. Software packaging is an important method for assisting in the process of assembling large programs from separate pieces, especially over a heterogeneous environment (an environment consisting of different machines, architecture, languages or operating systems). A software packager is a tool that takes a description of the modules of a program, the available connection methods, and the final desired connection geometry, and creates the integration methods to create the application.