Experience report: using RESOLVE/C++ for commercial software

ABSTRACT

Academic research sometimes suffers from the “ivory tower” problem: ideas that sound good in theory do not necessarily work well in practice. An example of research that potentially could impact practice over the next few years is a novel set of component-based software engineering design principles, known as the RESOLVE discipline. This discipline has been taught to students for several years [23], and previous papers (e.g., [24]) have reported on student-sized software projects constructed using it. Here, we report on a substantial commercial product family that was engineered using the same principles — an application that we designed, built, and continue to maintain for profit, not as part of a research project. We discuss the impact of adhering to a very prescriptive set of design principles and explain our experience with the resulting applications. Lessons learned should benefit others who might be considering adopting such a component-based software engineering discipline in the future.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
        D.2.13 Reusable Software
            Subjects: Reusable libraries

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

General Terms:
Design, Documentation, Management

Keywords:
component-based software engineering, design discipline, design-by-contract, generic, software reuse, swapping, template