Software Reuse

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 1

 Objectives

To explain the benefits of software reuse and
some reuse problems

To discuss several different ways to implement
software reuse

To explain how reusable concepts can be
represented as patterns or embedded in program
generators

To discuss COTS reuse

To describe the development of software product
lines

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 2

 Software reuse

In most engineering disciplines, systems are
designed by composing existing components
that have been used in other systems.

Software engineering has been more focused
on original development but it is now
recognised that to achieve better software,
more quickly and at lower cost, we need to
adopt a design process that is based on
systematic software reuse.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 3

Reuse-based software engineering

Application system reuse
• The whole of an application system may be reused
either by incorporating it without change into other
systems (COTS reuse) or by developing application
families.

Component reuse
• Components of an application from sub-systems to
single objects may be reused. Covered in Chapter 19.

Object and function reuse
• Software components that implement a single well-
defined object or function may be reused.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 4

 Reuse benefits 1

Increased dependability Reused software, that has been tried and tested in working systems,
should be m ore dependable than new software. The initial use of the
software reveals any design and implementation faults. These are then
fixed, thus reducing the number of failures when the software is reused.
Reduced process risk If software exists, there is less uncertainty in the costs of reusing that
software than in the costs of development. This is an important factor
for project management as it reduces the margin of error in project cost
estimation. This is particularly true when relatively large software
components such as sub-systems are reused.
Effective use of specialists Instead of application specialists doing the same work on different
projects, these specialists can develop reusable software that
encapsulate their knowledge.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 5

 Reuse benefits 2

Standards compliance Some standards, such as user interface standards, can be

implemented as a set of standard reusable components. For
example, if menus in a user interfaces are implemented using
reusable components, all applications present the same menu
formats to users. The use of standard user interfaces improves
dependability as users are less likely to make mistakes when
presented with a familiar interface.
Accelerated development Bringing a system to market as early as possible is o ften more
important than overall development costs. Reusing software can
speed up system production because both development and
validation time should be reduced.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 6

 Reuse problems 1

Increased maintenance If the source code of a reused software system or component is n ot

costs available then maintenance costs may be increased as the reused
elements of the system may become increasingly incompatible with
system changes.
Lack of tool support CASE toolsets may not support development with reuse. It may be
difficult or impossible to integrate these tools with a component
library system. The software process assumed by these tools may not
take reuse into account.
Not-invented-here Some software engineers sometimes prefer to re-write components as
syndrome they believe that they can improve on the reusable component. This is
partly to do with trust and partly to do with the fact that writing
original software is s een as more challenging than reusing other
people’s software.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 7

 Reuse problems 2

Creating and maintaining a Populating a reusable component library and ensuring the software
component library developers can use this library can be expensive. Our current techniques
for classifying, cataloguing and retrieving software components are
immature.
Finding, understanding and Software components have to be discovered in a library, understood and,
adapting reusable components sometimes, adapted to work in a n ew environment. Engineers must be
reasonably confident of finding a component in the library before they will
make routinely include a component search as part of their normal
development process.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 8

 The reuse landscape

Although reuse is often simply thought of as
the reuse of system components, there are
many different approaches to reuse that may
be used.

Reuse is possible at a range of levels from
simple functions to complete application
systems.

The reuse landscape covers the range of
possible reuse techniques.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 9

 Desi
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©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 10
 Reuse approaches 1

Design patterns Generic abstractions that occur across applications are

represented as design patterns that show abstract and concrete
objects and interactions.
Component-based Systems are developed by integrating components
development (collections of objects) that conform to component-model
standards. This is covered in Chapter 19.
Application Collections of abstract and concrete classes that can be
frameworks adapted and extended to create application systems.
Legacy system Legacy systems (see Chapter 2) that can be ‘wrapped’ by
wrapping defining a set of interfaces and providing access to these
legacy systems through these interfaces.
Service-oriented Systems are developed by linking shared services that may be
systems externally provided.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 11

 Reuse approaches 2

Application product An application type is generalised around a common

lines architecture so that it can be adapted in different ways for
different customers.
COTS integration Systems are developed by integrating existing application
systems.
Configurable vertical A generic system is designed so that it can be configured to
applications the needs of specific system customers.
Program libraries Class and function libraries implementing commonly-used
abstractions are available for reuse.
Program generators A generator system embeds knowledge of a particular types
of application and can generate systems or system fragments
in that domain.
Aspect-oriented Shared components are woven into an application at different
software development places when the program is compiled.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 12

 Reuse planning factors

The development schedule for the software.

The expected software lifetime.

The background, skills and experience of the
development team.

The criticality of the software and its non-
functional requirements.

The application domain.

The execution platform for the software.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 13

 Concept reuse

When you reuse program or design components,
you have to follow the design decisions made by
the original developer of the component.

This may limit the opportunities for reuse.

However, a more abstract form of reuse is concept
reuse when a particular approach is described in
an implementation independent way and an
implementation is then developed.

The two main approaches to concept reuse are:
• Design patterns;
• Generative programming.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 14

 Design patterns

A design pattern is a way of reusing abstract
knowledge about a problem and its solution.

A pattern is a description of the problem and
the essence of its solution.

It should be sufficiently abstract to be reused
in different settings.

Patterns often rely on object characteristics
such as inheritance and polymorphism.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 15

 Pattern elements

Name
• A meaningful pattern identifier.

Problem description.

Solution description.
• Not a concrete design but a template for a design
solution that can be instantiated in different ways.

Consequences
• The results and trade-offs of applying the pattern.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 16

 D
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©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 17
 The Observer pattern

Name
• Observer.

Description
• Separates the display of object state from the object itself.

Problem description
• Used when multiple displays of state are needed.

Solution description
• See slide with UML description.

Consequences
• Optimisations to enhance display performance are
impractical.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 18

 Obs
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©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 19
 Generator-based reuse

Program generators involve the reuse of
standard patterns and algorithms.

These are embedded in the generator and
parameterised by user commands. A program
is then automatically generated.

Generator-based reuse is possible when
domain abstractions and their mapping to
executable code can be identified.

A domain specific language is used to
compose and control these abstractions.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 20

 Types of program generator

Types of program generator
• Application generators for business data processing;
• Parser and lexical analyser generators for language
processing;
• Code generators in CASE tools.

Generator-based reuse is very cost-effective but its
applicability is limited to a relatively small number of
application domains.

It is easier for end-users to develop programs using
generators compared to other component-based
approaches to reuse.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 21

 A
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©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 22
 Key points

Advantages of reuse are lower costs, faster
software development and lower risks.

Design patterns are high-level abstractions
that document successful design solutions.

Program generators are also concerned with
software reuse - the reusable concepts are
embedded in a generator system.

©Ian Sommerville 2004 Software Engineering, 7th edition. Chapter 18 Slide 23